vV VAWJWiWAV m 
 
 ^ 
 


 r 
 
THE 
 
 LIFE 
 
 OF 
 
 JOHN MILTON. 
 
I 
 
 1 .N 
 


THE 
 
 LIFE 
 
 OF 
 
 JOHN MILTON 
 
 BY 
 
 CHARLES SYMMONS, D.D. 
 
 OF JESUS COLLEGE, OXFORD. 
 
 SECOND EDITION. 
 
 Si tyrannos insector, quid hoc ad reges ? quos ego a tyrannis 
 longissime sejungo. Defen. secund. 
 
 Nunc sub fcederibus coeant felicibus una 
 Libertas, ct jus sacri inviolabile sceptri : 
 Rege sub AUGUSTO fas sit laudare CATOXEM. 
 
 DR. GEORGE. 
 
 LONDON: . 
 
 PRINTED BY T. BENSLEY, BOLT COURT, FLEET STREET, 
 FOR NICHOLS AND SON; F. AND C. RIVINGTON; OTRIDGE AND 
 
 SON; T. PAYNE; J. CUTHELL; VERNOR, HOOD, AND SHARPE; 
 R. LEA; J. WALKER; CLARKE AND SONS; LACKINGTONV, 
 
 ALLEN, AND CO.; J. NUNN ; LONGMAN, HURST, REES, AND 
 
 ORME; CADELL AND DAVIES; J. HARDING; R. H. EVANS; 
 j. MAWMAN; J. HATCHARD; MATTHEWS AND LEIGH; AND 
 
 J. JOHNSON AND CO. 
 
 1810. 
 
 
o 
 
 
To the Memory of 
 my most dear and accomplished Son, 
 
 CHARLES SYMMONS, 
 
 by the suggestions of whose fine mind and perfect taste 
 
 I have been largely benefitted as a writer, 
 and to the contemplation of whose piety and virtues, 
 
 the sources of much of my past happiness, 
 
 I am indebted for all my present consolation, 
 
 I inscribe 
 
 THIS LIFE OF MILTON; 
 
 which, having grown under his eye 
 and been cherished with his regard, 
 
 is dear to me for merit, 
 not intrinsically its own. 
 
 On the 23d of May, 1S05, 
 
 before he had completed his twenty-second year, 
 
 he was torn from my affection and my hopes, 
 
 experiencing from his God, 
 
 the recompense of a pure life, 
 
 in the blessing of an early death. 
 
 CHARLES SYMMONS. 
 
 B 
 
 M29556 
 
PREFACE. 
 
 THOUGH a part of my former preface has 
 now lost its reference, I am induced to retain 
 the entire composition, as it was written 
 under the impression of principles, not liable 
 to decay, and of wounded affections which 
 can cease to pain, alas! only in the grave. 
 What I have now to say will relate altogether 
 to the present edition of my work to those 
 inaccuracies in it which I have corrected, 
 those deficiencies which I have supplied, or 
 those opinions which have been pronounced 
 on it since its property was transferred from 
 me to the public. 
 
 In quoting by memory from Dr. John- 
 son, I had been guilty of a verbal error; and 
 the slip was not suffered to be made with 
 impunity. On the passage in question, which 
 referred to that writer's censure of the " Da- 
 mon/' one of the public critics remarked, 
 " Here, however, we must impeach the bio- 
 
4 PREFACE. 
 
 grapher of mistake or lapse of memory in 
 quoting affectation where the original gives 
 us imitation of pastoral life, as part of the 
 argument is ingrafted upon the harshness of 
 the word used." 3 Though no essential part 
 of my argument was dependent on the mis- 
 cited word, (for imitation, with, childish, for its 
 adjunct, implies what is sufficiently injurious 
 and false to justify my censure and refuta- 
 tion,) I was thankful to the critic for his re- 
 mark; and the error has, in consequence, 
 been blotted from my page. 
 
 On that place, where I appeal to the 
 academical registers for the proof of Milton's 
 not having lost a term before he took his 
 bachelor's degree, and content myself with 
 specifying the year only for the date of this 
 event, the same critic, not without some 
 confusion in his language, observes, that 
 *' Dr. S. who quotes the register of Christ's 
 College in his" (Milton's I suppose) " vindi- 
 cation, should have substantiated his" (Dr, 
 
 * Crit. Review, series 3d. ix. 269, in a note. 
 
PREFACE. 5 
 
 S_'s I conclude) " point by the adduction of 
 
 more minute testimony, as his" (Milton's 
 
 again) " having taken his^ degree in 1628, 
 
 unless it were in the early part of that year, 
 
 after having entered in 1624-5, is obviously 
 
 inconclusive/' 13 In the early part of 1628 
 
 Milton could not have taken his degree, for 
 
 then his requisite number of terms would not 
 
 have been completed : but, (as we may chuse 
 
 to follow the present calendar, or that which 
 
 computed the beginning of the year from 
 
 March) he took his degree either early in 1629 
 
 or in one of the latter months of 1628. He took 
 
 it, in short, at the accustomed and regular time 
 
 of taking the B. A. degree in Cambridge, viz. 
 
 in January; and though he might have taken 
 
 it in the preceding term, the measure would 
 
 not have been consistent with the usual and 
 
 most reputable practice. With respect to 
 
 time therefore, he took his degree with the 
 
 strictest regularity, and as soon as he properly 
 
 could. This fact however is not, after all, so 
 
 decisive of the controverted point as I once 
 
 thought it, or as my censor, (if I am right in 
 
 b Ib. 264. 
 
O PREFACE. 
 
 my inference of his meaning,) is willing to ad- 
 mit it to be. As I am an historian with truth, 
 and not an advocate with victory for my ob- 
 ject, I will here fairly state the case for the 
 reader's uninfluenced determination. Milton 
 entered in Feb. 1624-5, and took his first de- 
 gree in Jan. 1628-9- Exclusively, however, 
 of the term in which he entered and of that 
 in which he took his degree, it was necessary 
 for him to keep only ten terms; and, if he 
 kept the term immediately subsequent to 
 that in which he entered, he would still have 
 one term to spare: whether or not, therefore, 
 he kept every term during the year in ques- 
 tion must now be regarded as a point which 
 it is impossible to ascertain. Having made 
 this statement to weigh what it can in the 
 estimation of Milton's enemies, and acknow- 
 ledged my own hasty and inaccurate conclu- 
 sion from premises which were correct, let 
 me profess that my conviction on the subject 
 remains unalterably as it was. It is possible, 
 and even probable that Milton passed one 
 of his terms under his father's roof: but his 
 positive assertion, that he had not incurred 
 any academical disgrace, makes it evident. 
 
PREFACE. 7 
 
 as I think, that his absence from the Univer- 
 sity in this instance was not the conse- 
 quence of any punishment; but was an act 
 either of obedience to his father's will, or of 
 submission to necessity, from the want of 
 pecuniary supplies. On this supposition the 
 expressions of" vetiti laris," and ;C exsilium," 
 would be strictly or poetically proper ; and 
 if he had suffered rustication, he would not 
 surely so confidently affirm, when it was in 
 the power of numbers to disprove him, that 
 he had taken his degree " procul omni flagi- 
 tio ;" for every scholar knows that flagitium 
 means not only facinus and vitium, but pro- 
 brum and dedecus, not merely crime, but 
 fchame and disgrace. 
 
 As this work was originally written under 
 circumstances not favourable to its perfec- 
 tion, I was fearful that it might be found, on 
 a revision, not only faulty in the substance 
 and the mode, but deficient also in the just 
 measure of its information. Its demand 
 however for correction has proved to be less 
 than I had reason to apprehend; and on 
 
8 PREFACE. 
 
 looking on every side for some fresh sources 
 of intelligence, I have not been able to dis- 
 cover any from which I could draw more than 
 a few accidental drops of what I deemed 
 worthy of my reader's participation. The 
 little new matter which I have obtained, has 
 been derived from the kindness of Mr. Bind- 
 ley, the first commissioner of the Stamp Of- 
 fice : a gentleman who delights in the com- 
 munication of the large and curious literary 
 stores which he possesses ; and whose bene- 
 volence, while it gives enjoyment to his own 
 declining age, diffuses pleasure around the 
 circle in which he moves. With reference to 
 myself, I must regret that my acquaintance 
 with this friend to literature and its profes* 
 sors has been formed at so late a period : 
 but it gratifies me to be yet indulged with 
 this opportunity of acknowledging my obli- 
 gations to him, and of evincing my feeling of 
 worth by professing my respect for him. 
 
 On striking the account with public criti- 
 cism, I am gratified to find the balance con- 
 siderably in my favour. If in some of its 
 
PREFACE. 9 
 
 pages I am subjected to more censure and 
 in others am treated with more munificence of 
 praise, in none of them am I consigned to 
 unqualified condemnation. In one indeed of 
 these vehicles of critical remark I find a 
 charge brought against me of republicanism ; 
 and in another, of insincere attachment to 
 the church of which I am a member : but 
 neither of these charges can touch me with 
 the irritation of a feather, as they are repelled 
 by the evidence of my work, of my con- 
 nexions, and of the uniform tenor of my writ- 
 ings and my conduct through life. 
 
 Satisfied however as I ought to be with 
 the general result of public criticism, I have 
 been struck, and at the same time pleased, as 
 I will confess, with the variety and, in some 
 instances, the contradiction of its opinions. 
 Here a fault has been objected to me, and 
 there with another name it has been thrown 
 into my scale for merit. By one my prose 
 composition has been censured, and by an^ 
 other my verse. This critic discovers that my 
 translations are superfluous, and that pro- 
 
10 PREFACE. 
 
 uounces mj numbers to be defective ; while 
 a third boldly affirms my style to be unfit for 
 narration, as it rises to turgidity and bombast, 
 and surpasses the modesty, not only of bio- 
 graphical narrative but, of prose itself! My 
 translations shall plead for themselves, and 
 shall find in me as silent an advocate as they 
 do in the ingenuous Mr. Hayley : c but of my 
 prose, which has been thus fearfully ar- 
 raigned, I must be permitted to suggest some- 
 thing in the defence. 
 
 Between the false and the true in com- 
 position the separating line is strong and 
 broad. Where ideas strut in a pomp of ex- 
 pression, to which they can allege no claim ; 
 where they are oppressed with an incum- 
 bency of words; where, from vague concep- 
 tion, they are indistinct, or, from wrong per- 
 ception, broken and disordered, the style sug- 
 gests the sense of incongruity, disproportion, 
 and deformity, and we justly brand it as 
 turgid, bombastic, and not calculated to fulfil 
 
 c See his publication of Cowper's translations of Milton's Latin 
 and Italian poetry. 
 
PREFACE. 11 
 
 the first duty of language, that of communi- 
 cating thought with propriety and precision. 
 This is the false in composition, and while 
 the critic may explain the causes of the error, 
 the illiterate will feel and will recoil from it 
 with disgust: all that is not thus incongruous 
 and disproportioned, undefined and confused 
 in the ideas and the diction is true ; and the 
 space between the very simple and the very 
 figurative is sufficiently wide to allow the 
 writer to walk or to run, as his spirits may 
 prompt or his taste may direct. If my com- 
 position, therefore, be convicted of any of 
 these enumerated crimes it must necessarily 
 be condemned : if it be found innocent, it 
 must be acquitted ; and the greater number 
 of my readers will not perhaps complain if 
 while their understandings are not abused, 
 their fancies should be entertained. Inter- 
 vening, indeed, between the true and the false 
 there are the several degrees of the better and 
 the worse, not ascertainable by any fixed 
 standard of principle, but left for discrimina- 
 tion to the loose and floating sentiment of 
 
12 PREFACE. 
 
 taste. In this nicer graduation of styles, if 
 mine should be determined by a plurality of 
 voices to be too remote from the just point, 
 I must submit to be censured, and must con- 
 tent myself with imputing the fault to the 
 vice rather of my nature than of my judg- 
 ment. I never strain after allusion, or labo- 
 riously beat the thicket for game : it springs 
 around me in abundance; arul I am com- 
 pelled to refuse more than I take. If I could 
 show my readers what I reject before it drops 
 upon the paper and what is subsequently 
 withdrawn by my prudence, they would per- 
 haps pardon the errors which I have com- 
 mitted, for those which, under the impulse 
 of temptation and with something of violence 
 to my feelings, I have virtuously abstained 
 from committing. 
 
 Having intimated, with reference to my 
 own case, a contrariety in some of the deci- 
 sions of public criticism, I may be asked the 
 cause of this opposition of judgment in writ- 
 ers, who profess to determine without passion 
 and on principles which are established and 
 
PREFACE. 13 
 
 invariable. But not to remark thai, in the 
 trial of literary composition, much must al- 
 ways be left to the discretion of individual 
 taste, and that in criticism, as in law, there is 
 something of a glorious uncertainty, it must 
 be observed that, in consequence of the pre- 
 sent eager demand for periodical criticism 
 which seems to be increasing with the hour, 
 every man, who can arrange a common sen- 
 tence, is invited, with the helmet, of Orcus 
 on his head, to assume the office of a critic, 
 and thus to pass sentence on the merits, if 
 not on the destinies of authors. The pen on 
 these occasions is frequently, as I know, in 
 the hand of ability and learning : but it is 
 also, as I am likewise certain, not infre- 
 quently in that of imbecillity and ignorance. 
 I am far however from objecting to this in- 
 discriminate exercise of criticism, which, pro- 
 ductive as it may be of partial evil, must, in 
 my view of its operation, have a tendency to 
 general good. I wish, indeed, that every 
 man who can spell would turn critic ; and 
 the extended agitation of opinion, which 
 
14 PREFACE. 
 
 would thus be excited, I am satisfied that the 
 cause of truth would eventually flourish. 
 Beneath the flood, which covers the plain, 
 fertility will rest upon the soil, and though 
 the weaker vegetation may perish, the root 
 of the stronger will be cherished, and the 
 branch of the loftier be adorned with more 
 copious and animated green. 
 
 By more than one of the public critics I 
 have been charged with injustice to the me- 
 mory of Dr. Johnson ; and for my treatment of 
 this extraordinary and inconsistent man, in 
 whom so many traits of great and so many of 
 little and mean character concur to excite in 
 the same moment our respect and our pity, 
 I have been censured with some degree of 
 harshness by a writer, of whose conduct to 
 me in other respects I feel no reason to com- 
 plain. d The intellectual power of Dr. John- 
 son with his numerous virtues, and those pre- 
 judices which united him with a potent fac- 
 tion in the state, conciliated during his life 
 the attachment of many illustrious friends, 
 
 * The Cabinet, Vo. I, p. 35. 
 
PREFACE. 15 
 
 and, when he ceased to breathe, communi- 
 cated a species of sanctity to his grave. Of 
 this I was aware in the commencement of 
 my undertaking ; and, repressed by a sensi- 
 bility of which he had shewn himself to be 
 insusceptible when he violated the ashes of 
 Milton, my hand paused, as I reflected that 
 he, on whom it was to fall, had paid the last 
 debt of human infirmity, and was no longer 
 in a condition to oftend or resist. The sug- 
 gestions of feeling in this instance pressed me 
 more strongly than those of prudence ; and, 
 superior as I was conscious of being with 
 the weapons of truth, I wished him to 
 
 " be alive again, 
 " To dare me to the desert with his sword." 
 
 Bat death can consecrate only virtue and 
 truth ; and with the fear of posthumous con- 
 viction and disgrace would be extinguished 
 one of the most powerful restraints of human 
 enormity and excess. If every villain were 
 assured of an inviolable asylum for his me- 
 mory in the tomb ; and a James or a Wild 
 
16 PR-EPACE. 
 
 were to rest unmolested by the side of an 
 Antoninus or a Socrates, the desire of fame 
 and the terror of reproach would be deprived 
 of half of their beneficial influence; and every 
 wretch, who could defy the laws and was not 
 afraid of God, would indulge his selfish pas- 
 sions without the check of a con troll. But 
 the case is too clear to admit of illustration ; 
 and if we cannot, like the old Egyptians 
 with respect to their deceased monarchs, sub- 
 mit the dead to the striking solemnity of a ju- 
 dicial process, it belongs to the historian and 
 the biographer to bring their conduct to the 
 bar of Truth, and firmly to pronounce her 
 sentence of acquittal or condemnation. On 
 the dead indeed only can the sentence of 
 truth, at all times and without the plead- 
 ing of any opposing duty, be pronounced. 
 Have I then advanced against Dr. Johnson a 
 single charge unsupported by sufficient evi- 
 dence? Have I accused him of malignity to 
 Milton, when the crime can be denied by the 
 most bigotted of his adherents? Have I called 
 him the coadjutor and accomplice of Lauder, 
 
PREFACE. 17 
 
 when the propriety of the terms is not fully 
 established by the production of facts? The 
 case in truth, is in this instance not stated 
 so strongly as it might be against the au- 
 thor of the Rambler; and it is the pru- 
 dence of his friends not to provoke any 
 further discussion of the subject, as it must 
 infallibly terminate in his greater confusion. 
 If he was not actually privy to the forgeries 
 of the northern schoolmaster, whose confi- 
 dence he accepted and abused, he certainly 
 had sufficient reason to suspect them ; and 
 with his friend, Cave, he resisted their detec- 
 tion as long as the resistance could be either 
 effectual or safe. In any event, he adopted the 
 whole of Lander's malignity; and let his par- 
 tizans first clear him of this offence before 
 they talk bigly of his innocence, and bluster 
 in his cause. Urged as I have been by some, 
 whom I respect and love, to soften what I 
 have said against him, with my conviction of 
 the atrocity of his conduct, to one of the most 
 perfect characters which is to be found in 
 the page of biography, I have not erased a 
 
 c 
 
18 PREFACE. 
 
 syllable respecting him, and have felt more 
 inclined to strengthen than to mitigate the 
 censures, of which I have made him the sub- 
 ject. Even the concluding sentences of my 
 work, which seem to extend their crimination 
 to his general merits as a writer, I have not 
 persuaded myself to omit: and if it be a 
 crime in me, with the fullest sense of the 
 great powers of his mind, to regard him as a 
 corrupter of our style, to affirm that I dis- 
 like the fatiguing and laborious monotony of 
 his sentences, and, delighted as I have been 
 with the occurrence of brilliant passages, of 
 vigorous and original thought, to assert that 
 I have never yet read one of his productions 
 with unmingled or even with prevailing plea- 
 sure; if this I say be a crime in me, I cannot 
 hesitate to avow it, and I must consent to 
 visit that allotment of future time, which may 
 belong to me, with the brand of guilt flagrant 
 on my forehead. 
 
 My preface is already too long: but I must 
 be forgiven if I still lengthen it to touch upon a 
 topic, which stands in connexion with my work. 
 
PREFACE. 19 
 
 When I offered the translations of some 
 of Milton's Latin and Italian poetry to the 
 public, I introduced them with a note of 
 civility to Mr. Cowper: and to Mr. Hay- 
 ley, who has enriched himself by convert- 
 ing the ashes of his friend into gold, I have 
 shewn myself disposed, in more than one 
 instance, to be too liberal rather than too 
 economical of praise. Not regarding the 
 translator's palm as an object worthy of con- 
 test, I translated merely for the entertain- 
 ment of my readers : but I translated also, as 
 I will ingenuously confess, or I would not 
 have translated at all, without a conscious- 
 ness of inferiority to the writer who had pre- 
 ceded me on the ground. Having published, 
 however, in the course of the last year, the 
 whole of his departed friend's translations 
 from my author, Mr. Hayley has favoured 
 me with notices which are not of a nature to 
 exact my thanks, or to impress me with any 
 strong idea of a just and honourable mind. 
 Of one of my translations alone has he con- 
 descended to speak; and of this he has judged 
 
20 PREFACE. 
 
 it right to speak in such a manner as strongly 
 to imply that it is the single instance of poe- 
 tic translation to be discovered in my volume. 
 That this was the persuasion which he in- 
 tended to communicate to his readers, is ma- 
 nifested by his subsequent conduct : for on 
 occasions which he has improved to display 
 his candour and his taste, by lavishing extra- 
 vagant commendations on some very subor- 
 dinate versions of the " Mansus " and the 
 " Damon/' he has carefully buried mine in 
 the profundity of silence. In a few passages, 
 indeed, he has been pleased to couple my 
 name, as a writer, with some civil epithets : 
 but at the same time he has prudently guarded 
 against any possible excitement of my vanity, 
 by throwing me into company, not of a class 
 to corrupt me with improper sensations of my 
 own importance. As Mr. Cowper's transla- 
 tions may now be confronted w r ith mine, I 
 have only to declare that, if the relative 
 merit of the latter should be determined by 
 the general suffrage to be inconsiderable, I 
 shall be happy, whenever another edition of 
 
PREFACE. 21 
 
 my work may indulge me with the opportu- 
 nity, to remove them from the eyes of a judi- 
 cious public, of which, under this decision, 
 I must pronounce them to be wholly un- 
 worthy. 
 
 By one of the public critics 6 I have been 
 referred to a translation of the " Damon" by 
 the pen of the late unfortunate Dermody, with 
 a suggestion that it is superior to that which 
 1 have submitted to my readers. Having 
 not, however, been able to find this transla- 
 tion in the place where I was directed to look 
 for it, I am still unacquainted with it other- 
 wise than by this critic's report; and I can 
 therefore only profess with truth, that if it 
 really deserve the preference which he assigns 
 to it, (and I am very well disposed to believe 
 that it may), I shall be honestly gratified by 
 the fact: for desirous as I may be of erecting 
 myself to the stature of higher men, I am far 
 from wishing to depress them to the medi- 
 ocrity of mine. So that I were permitted to 
 
 e See the article in the Cabinet, to which I have before re- 
 ferred. 
 
22 PREFACE. 
 
 retain my own positive rank, intellectual and 
 moral, it would please me to see my whole 
 species on an elevation above me : since, ac- 
 tuated by an ambition the very reverse of 
 Caesar's, I would rather be the last of an an- 
 gelic community than the first of a human. 
 
 With respect to Mr. Hayley, I may per- 
 haps be arraigned of ingratitude or deficient 
 taste, when I express a wish that he had ob- 
 liged me by a total forgetfulness of my very 
 name ; and had reserved the whole impres- 
 sion of his praise, in its unbroken integrity, for 
 Messrs. Cowper, Langhorne, Stockdale, Ster- 
 ling, and Todd, With no peculiar abstinence 
 to boast in my appetite for praise, I am con~ 
 tented with that portion of it which has been 
 adjudged to me : and I may candidly confess 
 that, while it has satisfied my desire, it has 
 very far exceeded my desert. To adduce all 
 the eminent names of those, who have in- 
 dulged me with their applause, would expose 
 me to the suspicion of a vanity, of which I 
 am unconscious : but I must say that, if I 
 have not been so fortunate as to obtain the 
 
PREFACE. 23 
 
 favour of Mr. Hayley, I have experienced 
 some degree of consolation under the humili- 
 ating circumstance, from the very partial re- 
 gard with which this Life of Milton has been 
 honoured by a WILLIAM GIFFORD, a 
 SAMUEL PARR, and a CHARLES Fox. To 
 the last my voice cannot now reach ; and to 
 the first I have already imperfectly ex- 
 pressed my sense of obligation : but Doctor 
 Parr must forgive me if I here state that 
 the benefit, which this edition of my work 
 has derived from the assistance of his judg- 
 ment, has been so considerable as to give 
 him a just claim to the thanks of my readers 
 and myself. In a correspondence, which has 
 passed between us, his deep and accurate 
 erudition has supplied me with so many cu^ 
 rious observations on the subject of Milton's 
 Latin poetry that, if I could consent to ar- 
 rogate the possessions of a friend for my 
 own and to shine with the wealth of an- 
 other, I could now make a splendid figure, 
 and appear to be great beyond the design of 
 my nature or the indulgence of my fortune. 
 
24 PREFACE. 
 
 The high reputation of Dr. Parr for learning 
 and for talents cannot acquire a line of ad- 
 ditional elevation from my panegyric ; and 
 when I affirm that his virtues as a man are 
 equal to his merits as a scholar and a writer, 
 I say only what his friends know to be true 
 and what his enemies have not the confi- 
 dence to deny. I speak of him on this oc- 
 casion only to gratify myself, and he must 
 pardon my justifiable vanity for 
 
 " Nee Phoebe gratior ulla 
 Quam sibi quae Vari praescripsit pagina nomen." 
 
 Before I conclude, I must profess my 
 thankfulness to the Reverend Doctor Disney, 
 of the Hyde, for his very obliging commu- 
 nication of the fine drawing, which has sup- 
 plied my work with its valuable frontispiece; 
 and to the Reverend Mr. Matthews, Fellow 
 of Jesus College, Oxford, for the kindness 
 with which he has enabled me to gratify the 
 curiosity of my readers with a most curious 
 fac-simile of Milton's hand-writing. 
 
 The drawing by Cipriani, from which my 
 
PREFACE. 25 
 
 frontispiece is engraved, is of a bust, in the 
 possession of Dr. Disney, which was mo- 
 dell-' d from my author immediately after he 
 had completed his " Defence of the People of 
 England ; " and the fac-simile is of the writ- 
 ing of that great man, in a volume of his 
 poems, published in 1645, which he pre- 
 sented to Rouse, the librarian of the Bodleian, 
 and which is now preserved in that grand re- 
 pository of the literature of ages. 
 
 MAY 11, 180p. 
 
PREFACE 
 
 TO 
 
 THE FIRST EDITION. 
 
 MORE than two years have now elapsed since 
 the Editors of the prose works of Milton fa- 
 voured me with an application for the life of 
 the author. With the diffidence, proper to 
 my conscious mediocrity of talents, but with 
 the alacrity, inspired by the wish of illustrat- 
 ing a great and an injured character, I under- 
 took, and soon sketched the rough draught of 
 a large portion of the work. Unacquainted 
 with the general progress of the publication, 
 with which my biography was to be con- 
 nected, I already looked forward to its early 
 appearance, when it pleased the Almighty 
 to visit me with an affliction of so much 
 power as to oppress all my faculties, and, 
 during a heavy interval of many successive 
 months, to render me incapable of the 
 slightest mental exertion, From this half- 
 
28 PREFACE TO 
 
 animated state I was at length roused by 
 a sense of the duty which I owed to my 
 engagements, and by the fear of having in- 
 jured, with the consequences of my weakness, 
 those interests which I had bound myself by 
 promise to promote. On the completion, 
 however, of my work, I discovered, and not 
 without some satisfaction, that my life of Mil- 
 ton was yet to wait for its associate volumes 
 from the press, and consequently that I had 
 contracted no obligations for indulgence ei- 
 ther to the editors or the public. Of all the 
 parties, indeed, engaged in the transaction 
 I alone seemed to have experienced any 
 essential change of situation in the interval 
 between the expected and the actual period 
 of the publication. Eighteen months ago 
 I felt an interest in the scene around me of 
 which I must never again hope to be sen- 
 sible ; and my pen, which now moves cnly 
 in obedience to duty, was then quickened 
 by the influences of fame. Eighteen months 
 ago, like the man who visited the Rosicrusian 
 tomb, I was surrounded with brilliant lis;ht: 
 
THE FIRST EDITION. 29 
 
 but one blow dissolved the charm, broke the 
 source of the illumination, and left me in se- 
 pulchral darkness. It is only, however, in their 
 reference to the execution of the following 
 work that my calamities or my weaknesses 
 can be of consequence to the public. If 
 any passages then, in the present life of Mil- 
 ton, should be noticed by the reader for pe- 
 culiar deficiency in composition or in spirit, 
 as he pronounces their merited condemnation 
 let him be told that they were written by a 
 father who, with a daughter, the delight and, 
 alas! perhaps too much, the pride of his 
 heart, has lost the great endearment of exist- 
 ence; the exhilaration of his cheerful and the 
 solace of his melancholy hour. 
 
 Candour now requires me to speak of the 
 literary assistance of which I have availed 
 myself. If any vanity yet lingered in my 
 bosom, in which every animating passion is 
 nearly extinct, I might abundantly gratify the 
 weakness by enumerating among my friends 
 or acquaintance some of the first scholars and 
 geniuses of the age : but of those, whose abi- 
 
30 PREFACE TO 
 
 lity, if circumstances had permitted me to 
 solicit its co-operation, would have imparted 
 ornament and value to my production, my 
 obligations for effective aid are limited to 
 one. By the reverend FRANCIS WRANG- 
 HAM, with whose talents and various erudi- 
 tion the public is already acquainted, I have 
 been favoured with translations of my au- 
 thor's sixth elegy, of the greater part of his 
 ode to Rouse, of more than one of his fami- 
 liar epistles, and of many portions of his 
 controversial pieces. These translations the 
 reader would easily discover not to be mine: 
 but to prevent his inquiry for the superior 
 hand, from which they came, he will find 
 them either acknowledged in their places, or 
 specified at the foot of the present page. a 
 
 a The second letter to Deodati. The conclusion of the <f De- 
 fence of the People of England:" " Hactenus quod initio insti- 
 tueram," &c. 
 
 The two letters to Leo. Philaris, with exception to the quo- 
 tation in the second of them from Apollonius, for the version 
 of which I am accountable. 
 
 The address to Cromwell from the " Second Defence:" 
 " Tu igitur Cromuelle," &c. 
 
 The conclusion of the " Second Defence :" <e Ad me quod 
 attinet," &c. 
 
 The letter to Peter Heimbach after the plague in London. 
 
THE FIRST EDITIOK. 31 
 
 I am bound also to profess myself indebted 
 to this accomplished scholar and excellent 
 friend for several hints of minute information 
 by which I have considerably profited. 
 
 The name of WILLIAM GIFFORD, so as- 
 sociated with praise in the conversation of 
 the world, I have already taken occasion to 
 introduce into the body of my volume: but 
 I must not omit the present opportunity of 
 mentioning that many of my last sheets, as 
 they passed through the press, have been im- 
 proved by the revision of this accurate critic, 
 and most friendly man. 
 
 On the plan and the execution of my 
 work, it would not be my wish, if I pos- 
 sessed the power to influence the determi- 
 nation of the reader. It has been my object 
 to present to him as complete a view of the 
 subject, of which I have undertaken to treat, 
 as was admitted by my materials or my 
 powers; and to communicate to my pages 
 all the variety and entertainment, of which 
 they were susceptible, I have interspersed 
 them with small pieces of criticism, with 
 
PREFACE TO 
 
 translations and extracts from my author, 
 and with occasional, though short views of 
 the great contemporary occurrences in the 
 state. 
 
 For the political sentiments discoverable 
 in my work I am neither inclined, nor, in- 
 deed, able to offer an apology. They flow 
 directly from those principles which I im- 
 bibed with my first efforts of reflexion, which 
 have derived force from my subsequent read- 
 ing and observation, which have " grown 
 with my growth, and strengthened with my 
 strength/' If they should, therefore, unhap- 
 pily be erroneous, my misfortune, as I fear, 
 is hopelessly irremediable, for they are now 
 so vitally blended w r ith my thought and my 
 feelings, that with them they must exist or 
 must perish. The nature of these principles 
 will be obviously and immediately apparent 
 to my readers; for I have made too explicit 
 an avowal of my political creed, with refer- 
 ence to the civil and the ecclesiastical system 
 of which I am fortunately a member, to be 
 under any apprehensions of suffering by mis- 
 
THE FIRST EDITION. 33 
 
 
 
 construction. If any man should affect to 
 see more deeply into my bosom than I profess 
 to see myself; or to detect an ambush of 
 mischief which I have been studious to cover 
 from observation, that man will be the ob- 
 ject not of my resentment but of my pity. 
 I shall be assured that he suffers the infliction 
 of a perverted head or a corrupt heart, and 
 to that I shall contentedly resign him, after 
 expressing a simple perhaps, but certainly a 
 sincere wish for his relief from what may 
 justly be considered as the severest of hu- 
 man evils. 
 
 I belong to a fallible species, and am 
 probably to be numbered with the most fal- 
 lible of its individuals: but I am superior to 
 fraud, and am too proud for concealment. 
 TRUTH, religious moral and political, is what 
 alone I profess to pursue; and if I fancied 
 that I discerned this prime object of my re- 
 gard by the side of the Mufti or the grand 
 Lama, of the wild demagogues of Athens or 
 the ferocious tribunes of Rome, I would in- 
 
 D 
 
34 PREFACE TO 
 
 stantly recognize and embrace her. As I 
 find her however, or find a strong and bright 
 resemblance of her in my own country, I 
 feel that I am not summoned to propitiate 
 duty with the sacrifice of prudence, and that, 
 conscious of speaking honestly, I can enjoy 
 the satisfaction of speaking safely. With- 
 out acknowledging any thing in common, 
 but a name, with that malignant and selfish 
 faction which, surrendering principles to pas- 
 sion, inflicted, in the earlier periods of the 
 last century, some fatal wounds on the con- 
 stitution; or with those men who in later 
 times, abandoning their party and its spirit, 
 have struggled to retain its honourable appel- 
 lation, I glory as I profess myself to be a 
 WHIG, to be of the school of SOMERS and 
 of LOCKE, to arrange myself in the same 
 political class with those enlightened and 
 virtuous statesmen who framed the BILL 
 OF RIGHTS and the ACT OF SETTLEMENT, 
 and who, presenting a crown, which they 
 had wrested from a pernicious bigot and 
 
THE FIRST EDITION. 35 
 
 his family, to the HOUSE OF HANOTEK, gare * 
 that most honourable and legitimate of titles, 
 
 the FREE CHOICE OF THE PEOPLE, to the 
 
 Sovereign who now wields the imperial 
 
 sceptre of Britain. 
 
 i 
 
 AUG. 4. 
 

 ' 
 

 
THE 
 
 LIFE OF MILTON. 
 
 Quern tn, Dea, teinpore in omni 
 Omnibus ornatum voluisti excellere rebus. LUCR. 
 
 THE author of the " Defence of the People 
 of England" and of the " Paradise Lost" has 
 engaged too much of the attention of the 
 world not to invite its curiosity to the cir- 
 cumstances of his conduct and the pecu- 
 liarities of his mind. His biographers have 
 been numerous; and every source of infor- 
 mation respecting him has been explored with 
 a degree of solicitous minuteness, which bears 
 honourable testimony to the impression of his 
 importance. Unfortunately however, the cha- 
 racter which the great Milton sustained, on 
 the political theatre of his calamitous times, 
 has exposed him to the malignity of party; 
 and this undying and sleepless a pest has been 
 
 * " Nee dulci declinat Jumina somno." 
 
 Party resembles the " Fama malum," the allegorical monster 
 of Virgil, in jrjiore than this particular of sleeplessness 5 for it is 
 
53 LIFE OP MILTON. 
 
 ever watchful lo diminish the pride of his 
 triumph, and to obscure that glory which it 
 could not extinguish. 
 
 During the immediate agitation of the 
 political conflict, while interest is directly af- 
 fected, passion will necessarily be excited ; 
 and the weapons of passion are seldom deli- 
 cately fashioned or scrupulously employed. 
 When the good or the great therefore are 
 exposed to falsehood by contemporary ma- 
 lignity, and are held up. with questioned vir- 
 tues and imputed vices,, to the execration 
 instead of the applause of their species, we 
 acknowledge the cause of the fact in the cor- 
 ruption of man, and it forms the subject 
 of our regret rather than of our surprise. But 
 when, after a lapse of years sufficient to 
 obliterate . the very deepest trace of tempo- 
 rary interest, we observe the activity of pas- 
 sion stagnating into the sullenness of ran- 
 cour; and see these heroes of our race sub- 
 jected to the same injuriousness of malice 
 which they had suffered from their personal 
 adversaries, we stare at the consequence of 
 unexpected depravity, and are astonished in 
 as great a degree as we are afflicted. 
 
 also " ficti praviqne tenax," tenacious of falsehood and wrong} 
 < et magnas territat urbes," and it alarms and agitates great cities, 
 breaking the repose and concord of large communities of men. 
 
LIFE OF MILTON. 39 
 
 This remark is immediately to our pre- 
 sent purpose: for this generation has wit- 
 nessed an attempt on the character of our great 
 writer, which would have done credit to the 
 virulence of his own age. We have seen a 
 new Saltnasius, unimpelled by those motives 
 which actuated the hireling of Charles, re- 
 vive in Johnson ; and have beheld the virtu- 
 ous and the amiable, the firm and the con- 
 sistent Milton, w r ho appears to have acted, 
 from the opening to the close of his life* 
 
 " As ever in his great Taskmaster's eye," 
 
 exhibited in the disguise of a morose and a 
 malevolent being; of a man, impatient him- 
 self of the social subordination, yet oppressive 
 to those within his power; of a wretch who, 
 from pride austerity and prudence, was at 
 once a rebel, a tyrant, and a sycophant. This 
 atrocious libel has long since reflected dis- 
 credit on its author alone; and its falsehood 
 has been so clearly demonstrated by many 
 able pens, and particularly by those of Black- 
 burne b and of. Hay ley/ that a new biographer 
 
 b Francis Blackburne, Archdeacon of Cleveland, author of 
 the Confessional. He published, without his name, in 17^0, 
 some very able and acute remarks on Johnson's Life of Milton ; 
 and they have very properly been republished in the " Memoirs of 
 Thomas Hollis," of which the Archdeacon was .the compiler. 
 Hayley's Life of Milton. 
 
40 LIFE Otf MILTOK. 
 
 of Milton might well be excused from ho- 
 nouring it with his notice. But a regard to 
 the cause of morals and the best interests of 
 man seems to justify that indignation which 
 would brand, again and again, the hand lifted 
 in violation of the illustrious dead. The dead, 
 indeed, are at rest from their labours; and, 
 far from the reach of human malice, are in 
 possession of their reward: but it is discou- 
 raging to the weakness of the living, and con- 
 sequently calculated to diminish the incentives 
 to virtuous exertion, when it is perceived that 
 no endowments of nature, no accumulations 
 of knowledge, no just and sacred appro- 
 priation of talents can secure the distinguished 
 mortal from those insults of posthumous ca- 
 lumny, which may bring him down from the 
 eminence that he has gained, and level him 
 with the vulgar of the earth. 
 
 Though few, if any immediate references 
 will be made in the following work to the 
 modern biographers of Milton, to many of 
 them the author must necessarily have con- 
 tracted important obligations; of some of 
 which he is conscious, though of others he 
 may be ignorant. He takes therefore this 
 opportunity of making a general acknow- 
 ledgement to those who have preceded him 
 on his subject, and particularly to the ac* 
 
IIFB OF MILTON. 41 
 
 curate Dr. Birch and the liberal Mr. Hay- 
 ley/ More solicitous to avoid the charge of 
 deficiency than that of obligation, he has 
 freely availed himself of assistance from what- 
 ever quarter it could be obtained ; and if 
 his circumstantial or imperfect detail should 
 neither fatigue attention nor disappoint cu- 
 riosity, his end will be accomplished and 
 his wishes, of course, completely satisfied. 
 His anxiety has been solely to display truth; 
 and, not professing himself to be exempt from 
 those prejudices which cling to every human 
 being, he has been studious to prevent them 
 from disturbing the rectitude of his line or 
 from throwing their false tints upon his 
 canvass. 
 
 The lineage and ancestry of a great man 
 are apt to engage inquiry; as we are desirous 
 of knowing whether the virtue or the intel- 
 lect, which we are contemplating, be a spring 
 gushing immediately from the bosom of the 
 earth, or a reservoir, (if the allusion may be 
 permitted,) formed and supported by a long 
 
 . d Toland's Life of Milton is an able and spirited work. What- 
 ever may be the dements of this author in some essential re- 
 spects, his merit as the biographer of our great Poet is certainly 
 considerable, and entitles him to an honourable station among 
 the asserters of historic truth. The admirers, of Milton are under 
 great obligations to him. 
 
42 LIFE OF MILTON. 
 
 continued stream. Of the family of Milton 
 nothing more is known than that it was 
 respectable and antient ; long resident at 
 Milton 8 in Oxfordshire, and possessed of 
 property which it lost in the wars between 
 the rival houses of York and Lancaster. The 
 fortune alone of a female, who had married 
 into it, preserved it at this crisis from indi- 
 gence. The first individual of the family, of 
 whom any thing is mentioned, is John Mil- 
 ton, the grandfiather of our author; and of 
 him we are told nothing more than that he 
 was under-ranger of the forest of Shotover in 
 his native county ; that he was a zealous ca- 
 tholic, and that he disinherited his son, whose 
 name was also John, our author's father, for 
 becoming a convert to the protestant faith. 
 To whom the family property was bequeath- 
 ed from the right heir, we are not informed : 
 but we know that the son, on this disappoint- 
 ment of fortune, left his station at Christ 
 Church in Oxford, where he was prosecuting 
 his studies, and sought the means of subsist- 
 ence in London, from the profession of a 
 scrivener; a profession which in those days 
 united the distinct occupations of the law- 
 agent, and the money-broker. 
 
 e Near Halton and Thame. 
 
LIFE OF MILTON. 43 
 
 That he was not an ordinary man is evi- 
 dent from many circumstances. Under the 
 constant pressure of a profession, peculi- 
 arly unfavourable to the cultivation of liberal 
 knowledge or the elegant arts, his classi- 
 cal acquirements seem to have been con- 
 siderable; and such was his proficiency in the 
 science of music f that it entitled him to ho- 
 nourable rank among the composers of his 
 
 age. 
 
 We are not informed of the precise time 
 of his marriage; and there has even been a 
 question respecting the maiden name and 
 family of his wife. His grandson, Philips, 
 who seems on this occasion to be the prefer- 
 able authority, affirms that she was a Caston, 
 of a family originally from Wales. We are 
 assured that she was an exemplary g woman, 
 and was particularly distinguished by her 
 numerous charities. From this union sprang 
 John, our author, Christopher and -Anne, 
 Of the two latter, Christopher, applying him- 
 self to the study of the law, became a bencher 
 of the Inner Temple, and at a very advanced 
 period of his life was knighted and raised, by 
 
 f Burney's Hist, of Music, vol. iii. p. 134. 
 s Londini sum natus, genere honesto, patre viro integerrimo, 
 matre probatiHima et eleemosynls per viciniam potissimum not<1. 
 
 Def. Sec. P. W. v, 230. 
 
44 J.IFE OF MILTON. 
 
 James the Second, first to be a baron of the 
 Exchequer, and subsequently, one of the 
 judges of the Common Pleas. During the 
 civil war he followed the royal standard ; 
 and effected his composition with the victors 
 only by the prevailing interest of his bro- 
 ther. Christopher Milton is asserted, by his 
 nephew Philips, to have been a person of a 
 modest and quiet temper, in whose estima- 
 tion justice and virtue were preferable to 
 worldly pleasure and grandeur: but he seems 
 to have been also, as he is represented in 
 another account, " a man of no parts or 
 ability/' In his old age he retired from the 
 fatigues of business, and closed in the coun- 
 try a life of study and devotion. His only 
 sister, Anne Milton, was given by her father 
 in marriage, with a considerable fortune, to 
 Mr. Edward Philips, a native of Shrewsbury; 
 who, coming young to London, obtained in 
 a course of years the lucrative place of se- 
 condary in the Crown Office in Chancery: 
 of the children, which she had by him, 
 only two survived to maturity, Edward and 
 John; the former of whom became the bio- 
 grapher, after having, with his brother, been 
 the pupil of his uncle, our author. By a 
 second husband, a Mr. Agar, she had two 
 daughters, one of whom, Mary, died young; 
 
LIFE OF MILTON. 45 
 
 and of the other, Anne, we know nothing 
 more than that she survived till the year I6p4. 
 JOHN MILTON, the illustrious subject of 
 our immediate notice, was born, at his father's 
 house in Bread Street, on the 9th and was 
 baptized on the 20th of December, 1608. His 
 promise of future excellence was made, as we 
 are assured, at a very early period; and the 
 advantages which he derived from the at- 
 tentions of a father, so qualified as his to 
 discover and to appreciate genius, must ne- 
 cessarily have been great. Every incitement 
 to exertion and every mode of instruction, 
 adapted to the disposition and the powers of 
 the child, were unquestionably employed; 
 and no means, as we may be certain, were 
 omitted to expand the intellectual Hercules 
 of the nursery into the full dimensions of that 
 mental amplitude for which he was intended. 
 We know that a portrait of him, when he was 
 only ten years of age, was painted by the 
 celebrated Cornelius Janssen; and, if we had 
 not been positively told, on the authority of 
 Aubrey , h that he was then a poet, we should 
 
 h Aubrey, who is usually distinguished by the title of the 
 Antiquarian, is th author of " Monumenta Britannica," and 
 of a MS. Life of Milton, preserved in the Mus. Ash. Oxon. He 
 was personally acquainted with our poet, and from him Wood 
 professes to derive the materials of his account of Milton. It is 
 but fair to state, that I owe my acquaintance with Aubrey prin- 
 
46 LIFE OF 
 
 have inferred that the son, who was made the 
 object of so flattering a distinction by a fa- 
 ther, in competent indeed but by no means 
 in affluent circumstances, could not have 
 been a common child. 1 
 
 " My father destined me," (our author 
 says,) when I was yet a little boy, to the study 
 of elegant literature, and, so eagerly did I seize 
 on it that, from my twelfth year, I seldom 
 quitted my studies for my bed till the middle 
 of the night. This proved the first cause of 
 the ruin of my eyes; in addition to the natural 
 weakness of which organs, I was afflicted 
 with frequent pains in my head. When these 
 maladies could not restrain my rage for learn- 
 ing, my father provided that I should be 
 daily instructed in some school abroad, or 
 
 cipally to Mr. Warton; who speaks of the " Monumenta Bri- 
 tannica," as a very solid and rational work, and vindicates its 
 author from the charge of fantastical, except on the subjects of 
 chemistry and ghosts. Aubrey however, OB the whole, is a weak 
 and old-womanish writer ; whose authority, on the present subject 
 at least, ft to be received with caution, and only where no other 
 can be obtained. 
 
 " i Pater me puerulum humanioram literarum studiis desti- 
 navitj quas ita avide arripui, ut ab anno aetatis duodecimo vrx 
 unquam ante mediarn noctem a lucubrationibus cubitum discede" 
 rem ; quae prima oculorum pernicies fuit : quorum ad naturalem 
 debil ita tern accesserant et crebri capitis doloresj quse omnia cnm 
 discendi impetum not> retardarent, et in ]udo literario, et sub aJIis 
 domi magistris erudiendusn quotidie curavit." Defen. Secuo. 
 P.W. v.230. 
 
LIFE O* MILTON. 4? 
 
 by domestic tutors at home." How great are 
 the obligations of Britain and of the world to 
 such a father, engaged in the assiduous and 
 well-directed cultivation of the mind of such 
 a son! 
 
 But the reward of the father was ample; 
 and no one, but a parent of taste and sensi- 
 bility under circumstances of some resem- 
 blance, can form any estimate of the grati- 
 fication which he must have felt from his 
 child's increasing progress, and from the 
 prospects which it gradually opened. How 
 exquisite must have been his sensations on 
 receiving, in that admirable Latin poem which 
 is addressed to him, the fullest evidence of 
 the learning, genius, taste, piety and grati- 
 tude which had unfolded beneath his eye! 
 How pleased must he have been to accept 
 immortality from the hand which he had 
 himself fostered to be assured of visiting 
 posterity as the benefactor of his illustrious 
 offspring, and of being associated, as it were, 
 with him in the procession and expanding 
 pomp of his triumph! We may imagine with 
 what pleasure a father would read the fol- 
 lowing elegant compliment to his own pecu- 
 liar talent from the pen of his accomplished 
 poetic son : 
 
48 LIFE OF MILTON. 
 
 Nee tu perge, precor, sacras contemnere Musas; 
 Nee vanas inopesque puta, quarum ipse peritus 
 Munere, mille sonos rmmeros componis ad aptosj 
 Millibus et vocem modulis variare canoram 
 Doctus, Arionii merito sis nominis haeres. 
 Nunc tibi quid mirum si me genuisse poetam 
 Contigerit, charo si tarn prope sanguine juncti 
 Cognatas artes, studiumque affine sequamur? 
 Ipse volens Phoebus se dispertire duobus, 
 Altera dona mini, dedit altera dona parenti 5 
 Dividuumque Deum genitorque puerque tenemus> 
 
 Nor you affect to scorn the Aonian quire, 
 
 Bless'd by their smiles and glowing with their fire. 
 
 You ! who by them inspired, with art profound 
 
 Can wiHd the magic of proportion'd sound : 
 
 Through thousand tones can teach the voice to stray, 
 
 And wind to harmony its mazy way, 
 
 Arion's tuneful heir: then wonder not 
 
 A poet child should be by you begot. 
 
 My kindred blood is warm with kindred flame; 
 
 And the son treads his father's track to fame. 
 
 Phoebus controlls us with a common sway ; 
 
 To you commends his lyre, to me his lay: 
 
 Whole in each bosom makes his just abode, 
 
 With child and sire the same, though varied God. 
 
 This must have been most acceptable; 
 and yet, perhaps, more gratifying to the heart 
 of a parent would be that effusion of filial 
 affection with which the poem concludes. 
 
 At tibi, chare pater, postquam non aequa merenti 
 Posse referre datur, nee dona rependere factis, 
 Sit memorasse satis, repetitaque munera grato 
 Percensere animo, fidaeque reponere menti. 
 
LIFE OF MILTON. 4.Q 
 
 Et vos, O nostri, juvenilia carmina, lusus, 
 Si modo perpetuos sperare audebitis annos, 
 Et domini superesse rogo, lucemque tueri, 
 Nee spisso rapient oblivia nigra sub orco; 
 Forsitan has laudes, decantatumque parentis 
 Nomen, ad exemplum, sero servabitis sevo. 
 
 But since, dear sire, my gratitude can find 
 
 For all your gifts no gifts of equal kind: 
 
 Since my large heart my bounded fortunes wrong, 
 
 Accept, for all, the record of my song: 
 
 O take the love, that strives to be express'd ! 
 
 O take the thanks, that swell within my breast! 
 
 And you, sweet triflings of my youthful state, 
 
 If strains like you can hope a lasting date; 
 
 Unconscious of your mortal master's doom, 
 
 If ye maintain the day nor know the tomb, 
 
 From dark forgetfulness, as time rolls on, 
 
 Your power shall snatch the parent and the son: 
 
 And bid them live, to teach succeeding days 
 
 How one could merit, and how one could praise! l 
 
 Some part of our author's early educa- 
 tion was committed to the care of Mr. Tho- 
 mas Young, a puritan minister and a native, 
 as Aubrey affirms, of Essex: but at what pre- 
 cise period this connexion began or ended 
 is not now to be ascertained. It has been 
 deemed probable that Young continued in 
 his office till the time when, in consequence 
 of his religious opinions, he was compelled 
 to retire to the continent, where he obtained 
 the appointment of minister to the British 
 merchants at Hamburgh. Young's depar- 
 
 1 The reader will find an entire translation of this poem at 
 the end of the volume. 
 
 E 
 
50 LIFE OF MILTON. 
 
 ture from England is stated to have taken 
 place in 1623, when his pupil is supposed 
 to have been placed, in his fifteenth year, at 
 St. Paul's school. But this statement seems 
 to be inaccurate, as his pupil, in a letter 
 dated from Cambridge in 1628, promises him 
 a visit at his country house in Suffolk, and 
 compliments him on the independency of 
 mind with which he maintained himself, like 
 a Grecian sage or an old Roman consul, on 
 the profits of a small farm. 1 " 
 
 m " Rus tuum accersitus, simul ac ver adoleverit, libenter adve- 
 mam ad capessendas anni tuique non minus colloquii delicias : et 
 ab urbano strepitu subducam me paulisper ad Stoam tuam Ice- 
 riorum, tanquam ad celeberrimam illam Zenonis porticum aut 
 Ciceronis Tusculanum, ubi to, in re modica regio sane animo, 
 yeluti Serranus aliquis aut Curius, in agello tuo placide regnas." * 
 Mr. Warton imagines that Young returned in or before this 
 year (ld28) : but Laud's persecution of the puritans was now at 
 its height ; and if Young formerly fled from this persecution, he 
 must at the time in question have returned by stealth, and could 
 hardly have resided openly upon his Suffolk living of Stow-Market. 
 As the Tceni are supposed to have inhabited the counties of Norfolk 
 and Cambridge as well as that of Suffolk, the expression of " Stoam 
 tuam Icenorum," can be confined to Suffolk only by a reference 
 to Young's living of Stow-Market. When Milton used the word 
 if Stoa," on this occasion, and forced it from its proper station 
 next to " Zenonis," could he playfully intend an allusion to his 
 tutor's Stow? I suspect that he did. It is probable that Young 
 did not return from the continent till about the end of 1640 or the 
 beginning of the following year, when the Long Parliament of- 
 fered to him and to his brother exiles protection from the tyranny 
 pf the High Commission and the Star-Chamber courts. Soon, 
 
 * Epis. Thomae Junio Jul. 2. 1028. P. W. vi. 112. 
 
LIFE OF MILTON. 51 
 
 f< Availing myself (Milton writes to his 
 late tutor) " of your invitation to your coun- 
 try house, I will with pleasure come to you 
 as soon as the spring is further advanced, 
 that I may at once enjoy the delightfulness 
 of the season and that of your conversation. 
 I will then retire for a short time, as I would 
 to the celebrated porch of Zeno or to the 
 Tusculan villa of Cicero, from the tumult of 
 the town to your Suffolk Stoa, where you, 
 like another Serranus or Curius, in moderate 
 circumstances but with a princely soul, reign 
 tranquilly in the midst of your little farm." 
 In the same year however, we find him on 
 the continent, and followed by the affection 
 find gratitude of his pupil in a Latin elegy of 
 piuch beauty and poetic merit. 
 
 after this period, we find him engaged in controversy, as one of 
 the writers of the pamphlet called Smectymnuus, against bishop 
 Hall and archbishop Usher. He was a preacher at Duke's Place, 
 and was nominated one of the famous Assembly of Divines, 
 whom the Parliament appointed in 1643 for the management of 
 religion. On the visitation of the University of Cambridge by 
 the earl of Manchester, he was established, on the ejection of 
 Dr. Richard Stern, in the Mastership of Jesus College, and re- 
 tained it, with much credit to himself and advantage to the 
 college/till his refusal of subscription to THE ENGAGEMENT occa- 
 sioned his expulsion from the office. He died, and was buried, 
 as Mr. Warton in one of his notes in his edition of Milton's ju- 
 venile poems informs us, at Stow-Market, of which parish he 
 had been Vicar during thirty years. 
 
52 LIFE OF MILTON, 
 
 But at whatever period Young retired 
 to the continent or resigned his charge in 
 Mr. Milton's house, it is certain that before 
 his removal to the University the youthful 
 Milton passed some interval of study at St. 
 Paul's school, under the direction at that 
 time of Mr. Alexander Gill. Three of our 
 author's familiar letters are addressed to 
 Alexander Gill, his master's son and assistant 
 in the school, with whom he seems to have 
 contracted a warm and lasting friendship. 
 Their correspondence principally respects 
 the communication of some pieces of com- 
 position, and strongly attests the mutual re- 
 spect of the parties, founded, as we cannot 
 reasonably doubt, on their mutual conviction 
 of great literary attainments.* 1 
 
 A powerful intellect, exerted with un- 
 wearied industry and undiverted attention, 
 must necessarily possess itself of its object; 
 and we know that our author, when he left 
 
 P Alexander Gill was Usher to his father, and afterwards pro- 
 moted to the place of upper master. He was so rigid a discipli- 
 narian that he was removed for extreme severity from his office. 
 He wrote both in verse and prose with considerable taste j and 
 Mr. Warton mentions a Latin epitaph from his pen, which bears 
 testimony to the uncommon purity of his Latin composition. 
 Having exposed himself, by means of which we are now ignorant, 
 to the resentment of B. Jonson, he was made by that coarse writer 
 the subject of a virulent and brutal satire. 
 
LIFE OF MILTON. 53 
 
 this school iil his seventeenth year for the 
 University, was already an accomplished 
 scholar. Ardent in his love of knowledge, he 
 w 7 as regardless, as we have observed, of plea- 
 sure and even of health when they came 
 into competition with the prevailing passion 
 of his soul, and we are consequently not 
 much surprised by the extraordinary and 
 brilliant result which soon flashed upon the 
 world. 
 
 It was at this early period of his life, as 
 we may confidently conjecture, that he im- 
 bibed that spirit of devotion which actuated 
 his bosom to his latest moment upon earth: 
 and we need not extend our search beyond 
 the limits of his own house for the foun- 
 tain from which the living influence was 
 derived. Great must have been that sense of 
 religious duty, and considerable that degree 
 of theological knowledge which could induce 
 the father to abjure those errors in which ho 
 had been educated, sanctioned as they were 
 by paternal authority and powerfully en- 
 forced by the persuasion of temporal interest. 
 The important concessions which he was 
 compelled to make to religious principle 
 would necessarily attach it the more closely 
 to his heart ; and he would naturally be soli- 
 citous to stamp upon the tender bosom of his 
 
54 LIFE OF MILTON. 
 
 son that conviction and feeling of duty 
 which were impressed so deeply on his own. 
 He intended indeed to consecrate his son 
 to the ministry of the church, and for this 
 reason also he would be the more anxious 
 decidedly to incline him with the bias of 
 devotion. The sentiments and the warmth, 
 thus communicated to the mind of the young 
 Milton, would, no doubt, be strengthened by 
 the lessons and the example of his preceptor. 
 Young; in whom religion seems to have been 
 exalted to enthusiasm, and who submitted, 
 as we know, to some very trying privations 
 on the imperious requisition of his con^ 
 science. But from whatever source the fervid 
 spirit proceeded, it seems in its action on 
 our author's mind to have increased the 
 power as well as to have given the direction; 
 to have invigorated the strong, enlarged the 
 capacious, and elevated the lofty. We are 
 unquestionably indebted to it not merely 
 for the subject but for a great part also of 
 the sublimity of the Paradise Lost. 
 
 On the 12th of February 1624-5, he was 
 entered a pensioner at Christ's college, q Cam- 
 
 i The entry of Milton's admission, in Christ's College, is in 
 the following words : ' e Johannes Milton; Londinensis, films Jo- 
 hannis, institutus fuit in literarum elementis sub M ro Gill, Gym- 
 nasii Paulini pntfecto. Admissus est Pensionarius minor, Feb. 1 2, 
 1624, sub M ro Chappell, solvitque pro ingressu 10s." 
 
LIFE OF MILTON. 55 
 
 bridge ; and was committed to the tuition of 
 Mr. William Chappell, the reputed author 
 of the " Whole Duty of Man;" r and after-* 
 wards, in succession, provost of Trinity col- 
 lege, Dublin, dean of Cashel, and bishop of 
 Cork and Ross. 5 
 
 The conduct of the young Milton had. 
 
 For this and for other information on my subject I am in- 
 debted to my friend,, the Reverend G. Borlase, B. D. the liberal and 
 most respectable registrar of the University of Cambridge. 
 
 r This celebrated devotional work has been attributed to va- 
 rious hands: but of the numerous claimants to the honour of its 
 production, it seems with the greatest probability to be assigned 
 to Dorothy, daughter of Thomas, Lord Coventry, and wife of Sir 
 John Pakington, Bart, in the reigns of James the first and of the 
 two Charles's. 
 
 s As a respectable writer, (with the signature of S. C. in the 
 Gentleman's Magazine* for July, 1806,) expresses surprise at my 
 having omitted to mention the name of a. subsequent tutor of Mil-. 
 ton's, a Mr. Tdvey, who is noticed by Aubrey, I will now tran- 
 scribe from Aubrey's MS. the passage in which this second tutor 
 is mentioned, and, with a few remarks on it, will show the little 
 credit to which it is entitled, and consequently the propriety with 
 which it was formerly disregarded by A. Wood and lately by 
 myself. Aubrey professes to have gained his information from 
 that old dotard, Sir Christopher Milton, the brother of the poet. 
 " His" (our author's) first tutor there," (at Cambridge) " was 
 Mr. Chappell, from whom receiving some unkindness, (whipthim,) 
 he was afterwards, though it seemed against the rules of the col- 
 lege, transferred to the tuition of one Mr, Tovell" (not Tovey}, 
 who died parson of Lutterworth." Now the records of Mil- 
 ton's college notice the name of a Mr. Nathaniel Tovey as one of 
 its fellows : but giva no intimation of his having succeeded to the 
 rectory of Lutterworth, or of Milton's having been transferred toi 
 
 * VoLLXXVI. 595. 
 
56 LIFE OF MILTON. 
 
 hitherto been exempted from censure. Dis- 
 tinguished indeed, as it was, by zeal for 
 
 his tuition from that of Mr. Chappell's. With respect to the 
 whipping, which is assigned as the cause of Milton's change of 
 tutors, the alleged tact may be rejected on the most satisfactory 
 evidence. Not to observe that this punishment is asserted by 
 some of Milton's enemies to have been inflicted on him by the 
 hand of Dr. Bainbridge himself, the master of the college, who is 
 said to have been a stern disciplinarian ; this species of correction 
 was always inflicted by the deans of the college and neither by 
 the tutors nor the master, and, what is more immediately and 
 directly to our purpose, was restricted by the University statutes 
 altogether to loys, as they are distinguished from young men-, or, 
 in other words, to those who had not attained the age of pu- 
 berty. The words of the penal statute in question are, " Mule- 
 tetur, &c. si adultus : alioquin virga corrigaturj" and whether 
 Milton, who was in his seventeenth year when he entered at 
 the University, could be regarded on any construction of this 
 statute as liable to the punishment of the rod, shall be sub- 
 mitted to my readers to determine. I must believe that they 
 who drew up the University statutes, and they who were to 
 enforce them were too accurate in their learning not to em- 
 ploy their language with precision when they wrote, or not to 
 understand it with correctness when they read : adultus, ac- 
 cording to Stephens, whose explanation of the word is supported 
 by the most unquestionable authorities, is, qui adolevit, i.e. crevit 
 ad setatem quae adolescentia dicituf j and adolescentia is afterwards 
 defined to be prima aetas hominis post pueritiam. Adolescens in 
 jure dicitur, Qui inter annum decimum quartum etvicesimum quin- 
 tum setatem agit. Adultus, therefore, is a young man between 
 the ages of fourteen and five and twenty. In Milton's time, and 
 before it, it was usual to send boys under the age of puberty to the 
 University ; and that these loys should be still subjected to the 
 common mode of discipline in the subordinate schools cannot be a 
 cause of wonder or of reasonable censure. Dr. Johnson's concern 
 and shame therefore, on the occasion of Milton's supposed punish* 
 ment, might on every account very properly have been spared* 
 
LIFE OF MILTON. 57 
 
 study and contempt of pleasure, by obe- 
 dience to his masters and by piety to his pa- 
 rents, it might be regarded as not open to 
 attack and in no way to be made the subject 
 of malevolence: it was indebted however for 
 its immunity to other circumstances perhaps 
 than to those of its innocence and excellence. 
 It continued, as we have the strongest rea- 
 sons to believe, equally pure and exemplary 
 throughout the subsequent stages of his life: 
 but no sooner did he tread the threshold 
 6f manhood, and begin to offend by the 
 exhibition of novel opinions and strong cen- 
 sures, than he became the object of that 
 enmity which, pursuing him with detraction 
 to his grave, has in later times disturbed 
 his ashes and endeavoured to deform his 
 memory. 
 
 Of his conduct and the treatment which 
 he experienced in his college much has been 
 asserted and much been made the subject of 
 dispute. His enemies in his own days, (a 
 son of bishop Hall is supposed to have been 
 the immediate advancer of the charge,) ac- 
 cused him of having been vomited, after an 
 inordinate and riotous youth, out of the Uni- 
 versity, and his adversaries in the present 
 age, inflamed with all the hate of their pre- 
 decessors, have pretended to prove, from 
 
58 LIFE OF MILTON. 
 
 some vague expressions in one of his own 
 poems, that the slander, though completely 
 overthrown at the time of its first production, 
 was not altogether unsupported by truth. 
 The lines, supposed to contain the proof in 
 question, are the following which have been 
 so frequently cited from the first of his ele- 
 gies to his friend, C. Deodati: 
 
 Jam nee arundiferum mihi cura revisere Camum j 
 
 Nee dudum vetiti me laris angit amor : 
 Nuda nee arva placent, umbrasque negantia moll'es : 
 
 Quam male Phoebicolis convenit ille locus ! 
 Nee duri libet usque minas perferre magistri; 
 
 Caeteraque ingenio non subeunda meo. 
 Si sit hoc 1 exilium patrios adiisse penates 
 
 t vacuum curis otia grata sequi : 
 
 * Our author seems in this place to be guilty of a false quan - 
 tity, and to begin his hexameter very unwarrantably with a cre- 
 tic. Terentianus Maurus accuses Virgil of the same inaccuracy in 
 the line " Solus hie inflexit sensus," c. affirming, with the old 
 grammarians,, that hie and hoc were formerly written with two 
 c's, hicc, hocc, being contracted from hicce and hocce, and were 
 always long, Vossius on the contrary asserts that these pro- 
 nouns were long only when they were written with the double 
 cc. ff Ad quantitarem hujus pronominis quod attinet, pro- 
 ducebant et hie et hoc veteres quando per duplex c scribe'bant 
 hicc vel hocc, abjecto, ej corripiebant cum c simplex scripsere. 
 Art. Gram. 29. Of a short hie more than one instance may be 
 produced: " Hie vir hie est, tibi quern promitti ssepius audisj 
 but not one, as far as my recollection is accurate, of a short hoc, 
 " Hoc illud, germana, fuit." tc Hie labor hoc opus est." " Hoc 
 erat, alma parens." ff Hoc erat experto frustra Varrone." 
 ec Hoc erat in votis." My friend, Dr. Parr, however, has sug- 
 gested that, hoc, is to be found short in the comic poets j and 
 
LIFE OF MILTON. 59 
 
 Non ego vel profugi nomen sortemque recuso 
 Laetus et exilii conditione fruor. 
 
 has referred me to two places, one in Plautus and one in Terence, 
 where it certainly occurs with this quantity. If this authority, from 
 poetry neither epic, elegiac nor lyric, can save Milton in this in- 
 stance, it will be well ; and one sin against prosody will be struck 
 from his account. Salmasius, in his abusive reply to " The De- 
 fence of the People of England,' charges our author's Latin verse 
 with many of these violations of quantity, and the accusation is 
 repeated, as I shall remark in the proper place, by N. Heinsius. 
 Though Milton's Latin metre be not proof against rigorous inquisi- 
 tion, yet are its offences against quantity very few not more, per- 
 haps, (if the scazons, addressed to Salsilli, which seem to be con- 
 structed on a false principle, and some of the lines in the ode to 
 Rouse, which appear to have been formed in defiance of every prin- 
 ciple, be thrown out of the question,) than four or, at the most, five, 
 of a nature not to be disputed. Of these I shall notice two in the 
 Damon, one of them evidently a slip of the pen, as in a former 
 instance he had observed the right quantity, and the other an un- 
 warrantable licence rather than a fault of this specific description. 
 In the Idea Platonica, he is guilty of shortening the second syl- 
 lable of, sempiternus, which beyond all controversy is longj and 
 in his poem to his Father he makes the last syllable of, ego, long, 
 when it is unquestionably short; though here perhaps he might be 
 justified in lengthening it, as the ictus of the verse falls on it. 
 Of Academia, in the second Elegy, he shortens the penult in oppo- 
 sition to the uniform practice of the Greeks, and not sanctioned^ 
 by any authorities though countenanced, as Dr. Parr has acutely 
 discriminated, by some examples among the Latins j and lastly, 
 in the Alcaic ode on the death of Dr. Goslyn, he has left the inter- 
 jective, O, open in a situation in which it is never found open in 
 the Roman classics. When, contrary to the usage of Virgil, 
 Horace, &c. he lengthens the first syllable of Britonicum, in the 
 Damon, he is supported by the authority of Lucretius, vi. ] 1O4. 
 " Nam quid Britannis coslum differre putamus;" and when he 
 makes the final syllable of temere short in " Quid temere violas 
 
60 LIFE OF MILTON* 
 
 Extinct my love of mansions late denied, 
 No wish now leads me to Cam's reedy side : 
 
 non nocenda a numina," he is justified not only by analogy but 
 by the sole authority which can be produced on the occasion, and 
 as such to be admitted, the authority of Seneca, who in two places 
 uses it as short " Sic temere jactac colla perfundant comae." 
 Hippo. 3g2. 
 
 " Pondusque et artus temere congestos date." Id. 1244. 
 
 For these instances I am indebted to Dr. Parr. By Gray this 
 Syllable of temere is improperly made long Hospiti ramis temere 
 jacentem. I have omitted to state that in the iambics on the death 
 of Felton, Bishop of Ely, Neobolen is substituted without autho- 
 rity for Neobulen. 
 
 This I believe to be an accurate and full statement of Milton's 
 real and imputed transgressions of Latin prosody in all its just 
 severity; and this will vindicate me for saying that his offences of 
 this description are few, and not sufficient to support in its full 
 extent the charge which has been brought against him. I am 
 aware however, though the circumstance was not in the con- 
 templation either of Salmasius or of Heinsius, that Milton has 
 frequently sinned against the celebrated metrical canon, (ad- 
 vanced by Dawes, and acknowledged by the chief scholars of the 
 present age,) which determines that in Latin prosody a short 
 vowel is necessarily lengthened by the immediate sequence, 
 though in a distinct word, of sc, sp, and st. But, though I must 
 thus dissent from the opinion of Dr. Parr, from which it is im- 
 possible to dissent without a feeling of trembling diffidence, I 
 cannot profess myself to be certain of the authenticity of a law 
 which has not been invariably observed by the greatest masters of 
 Roman numbers in the purest age of Roman taste of a law, in 
 short, which has been broken by Catullus, by Horace, by Virgil, 
 by Ovid, and by Propertius. To get rid of an infraction cf this 
 rule by Virgil, its supporters are reduced to the violent expedient 
 of erasing the offending line without the authority of a single MS. 
 and when Horace with his fine judgment and nice ear, is guilty > 
 as he frequently is, of this imputed crime, the circumstance is attri- 
 buted to the laxity of the numbers, the " carmina sermoni pn> 
 
LIFE OF MILTON. 6l 
 
 Where genial shade the naked fields refuse ; 
 (Ah most unfriendly to the courted Muse!) 
 
 priora," which he professes to employ. Well be it so: but 
 what is to be said of the following instances, which have not been 
 hitherto produced, of a neglect of this rule by other writers of the 
 golden age of Roman poetry, and particularly by the learned Pro- 
 pertiusj in whom more instances of a similar nature are to be 
 found ? 
 
 " Testis erit magnis vertutibus unda Scamandri." CATUI*. 
 
 ^ Brachia spectavi sacris admorsa colubris." PROPER. 
 
 " Consuluitque stryges nostro de sanguine, et in me." Id. 
 
 <e Tuque O Minoa venundata Scylla figura." GALLI ELEG. 
 
 If this last instance, as brought from a work the authenticity 
 of which has been suspected by Broukhusitis and others, should 
 be thrown out of the question, examples enough have been ad- 
 duced, (and their number might easily be increased,) to vindicate 
 Milton when, with many of the first-rate scholars of the age just 
 past, he disregards a rule of prosody which, whatever may be 
 advanced in its support by the great scholars of our own times, 
 must be considered as possessing at the most only doubtful autho- 
 rity. Though Homer, if he may be allowed to have written his 
 Iliad or to have known the orthography of one of the rivers of 
 the Troad, has frequently transgressed this rule, it was very gene- 
 rally observed by the Greek poets : and by the poets of what has 
 been called the silver age of Roman composition, it has not, as far 
 as I can discover, been ever violated. It would seem that to a 
 Greek or a Roman ear the immediate sequence of the strong con- 
 sonants in question suspended the voice on the preceding short 
 vowel ; but not in that degree as to make inattention to its effect 
 an unpardonable offence against the harmony of the verse. 
 
 I have occasionally hinted that Milton's Latin prose composition 
 is not altogether faultless : but its faults are few and trivial; and 
 to dwell on them would expend time for an insufficient object. 
 On his Greek composition, of which the errors are more numerous 
 and perhaps of greater magnitude, I have purposely forborne to 
 fi'ffer any remarks, as that accomplished scholar and very acute 
 
62 LIFE OP MILTON. 
 
 And ill my soul a master's threats can bear, 
 With all the fretting of the pedant's war. 
 If this be banishment all cares aloof 
 To live my own beneath a father's roof 
 Still let an idle world condemn or not, 
 Mine be a truant's name, an exile's lot. 
 
 On u this passage, which probably would 
 not have been published if it had referred to 
 
 critic, the Reverend Doctor Charles Burney, has completely ex- 
 hausted the subject. When the almost infinite niceties of the 
 Greek language are considered, and it is recollected that the great 
 Sir William Jones, and even Dawes, the most accurate Grecian 
 perhaps whom this island till the present day has ever produced, 
 have not in every instance been able to observe them, the lapses 
 in Milton's Greek composition will possibly be regarded as venial, 
 and not to be admitted in diminution of the fame of his Greek 
 erudition. 
 
 u It may be proper to give a literal translation of these lines > 
 that the English reader may form his own judgment on the ex- 
 tent of their testimony. " Now neither am I anxious to revisit 
 reedy Cam, nor does the love of my lately forbidden college give 
 me uneasiness. Fields naked and destitute of soft shades do not 
 please me. How ill-suited to the worshippers of Phoebus is 
 such a place! Neither do I like always to bear the threats of a 
 hard master, and other things which are not to be submitted to 
 by a mind and temper like mine. If it be banishment to return 
 to a father's house, and there, exempt from cares, to possess de- 
 lightful leisure, I will not refuse even the name and the lot of 
 a fugitive, but exultingly enjoy the condition of an exile." As 
 it may amuse some of my readers to see the entire elegy, I will 
 transcribe it in its complete state,, with a translation very inferior 
 to the merits of the original. 
 
 ELEG. I AD CALORUM DEODATUM, 
 
 Tandem, chare, tuae mihi pervenere tabellae, 
 
 Pertulit et voces nuncia charta tuas : 
 Pertulit occidua Devae Cestrensis ab ora, 
 
 Vergtvium prono qua petit amne salum, 
 
LIFE OF MILTON. 63 
 
 any transactions dishonourable to the writer, 
 is rested the whole support of the accusa- 
 
 Multura, crede, juvat terras aluisse remotas 
 
 Pectus amans nostri, tamque fidele caputj 
 Quodque mihi lepidum tellus longinqua sodalem 
 
 Debet, at unde brevi reddere jussa velit. 
 Me tenet urbs reflua quam Thamesis alluit und, 
 
 Meque nee invitum patria dulcis habet. 
 Jam nee arundiferum mihi cura revisere Camum, 
 
 Nee duclum vetiti me laris angit amor. 
 Nuda nee arva placent, umbrasque negantia molles : 
 
 Quam male Phocbicolis convenit ille Jocus ! 
 Nee duri libet usque minas perferre magistri, 
 
 Caeteraque ingenio non subeunda meo. 
 Si sit hoc exilium patrios adiisse penates, 
 
 Et vacuum curis otia grata sequi, 
 Non ego vel profugi nomen sortemve recuso, 
 
 Laetus et exilii conditione fruor. 
 Oj utinam vates nunquam graviora tulisset, 
 
 IlleTomitano flebilis exul agro: 
 Non tune lonio quicquam cessisset Homero, 
 
 Neve foret victo laus tibi prima, Maro. 
 Tempora nam licet hie placidis dare libera Musis A 
 
 Et totum rapiunt me, mea vita, libri. 
 Excipit hinc fessum sinuosi pompa theatri, 
 
 Et vocat ad plausus garrula scena suos. 
 Seu catus auditur senior, sen prodigus haeres, 
 
 Seu procus, aut posita casside miles adest : 
 Sive decennali foecundus lite patronus 
 
 Detonat inculto barbara verba foro. 
 Ssepe vafer gnato succurrit servus amanti, 
 
 Et nasum rigidi fallit ubique patris: 
 Ssepe novos illic virgo mirata calores 
 
 Quid sit amor nescit, dum quoque nescit, amat, 
 Sive cruentatum furiosa Tragoedia sceptrum 
 
 Quassat, et efFusis crinibus ora rotat. 
 Et dolet, et specto, juvat et spectasse dolendo, 
 
 Interdum et lacrymis dulcis amaror inest : 
 
64 LIFE OF MILTON. 
 
 tion, preferred against our author's college 
 life, from his own to the present times. The 
 
 Seu puer infelix indelibata reliquit 
 
 Gaudia, et abrnpto flendus amore cadit : 
 Seu ferus e tenebris iterat Styga criminis 
 
 Conscia funereo pectora torre movens : 
 Seu moeret Pelopeia domus, seu nobilis 111, 
 
 Aut luit incestos aula Creontis avos. 
 Sed neque sub tecto semper, nee in urbe latemusjj 
 
 Irritn nee nobis tempora veris eunt. 
 Nos quoque lucus habet vicina consitus ulmo, 
 
 Atque suburban! nobilis umbra loci. 
 Saepius hie, blandas spirantia sidera flammas, 
 
 Virgineos videas praeteriisse choros. 
 Ah quoties dignae stupui miracula formae, 
 
 Quas possit senium vel reparare Jovis ! 
 Ah quoties vidi superantia lumina gemmas, 
 
 Atque faces quotquot volvit uterque polus ! 
 Collaque bis vivi Pelopis quae brachia vincant, 
 
 Quseque fluit puro nectare tincta via! 
 Et decus eximium fronds, tremulosque capillos, 
 
 Aurea quae fallax retia tendit Amor! 
 Pellacesque genas, ad quas hyacinthina sordct 
 
 Purpura, et ipse tui floris. Adoni, rubor! 
 Ceditc, laudatae toties Heroides olim, 
 
 Et quaecunque vagum cepit arnica Jovem. 
 Cedite, Achaemeniae turrita fronte puellae, 
 
 Et quot Susa colunt, Memnoniamque Ninon, 
 Vos etiam Danaae fasces submittite nymphae, 
 
 Et vos lliacae, Romuleaeque nurus : 
 Nee Pompeianas Tarpeia Musa columnas 
 
 Jactet, et Ausoniis plena theatra stolis. 
 Gloria virgmibus debetur prima Britannis ; 
 
 Extera, sat tibi sit, foemina, posse sequi. 
 Tuque urbs Dardaniis, Londinum, structa colonis^ 
 
 Turrigernm late conspicienda caput, 
 
LIFE OP MILTON. 65 
 
 author of the " Modest Confutation/' (whom 
 Milton believed to be the son of bishop Hall,) 
 
 Tu nimium felix intra tua moenia claudis 
 
 Quicquid formosi pendulus orbis habet. 
 Non tibi tot coelo scintillant astra sereno, 
 
 Endymionese turba ministra deae, 
 Quot tibi, consplcuae formaque auroque, puellae 
 
 Per medias radiant turba videnda vias. 
 Creditur hue geminis venisse invecta columbis 
 
 Alma pharetrigero milite cincta Venus 5 
 Huic Cniddn, et riguas Simoentis flumine valles, 
 
 Huic Paphon, et roseam posthabitura Cypron. 
 Ast ego, dum pueri sinit indulgentia caeci, 
 
 Moenia quam subito linquere fausta paroj 
 Et vitare procul malefidae infamia Circes 
 
 Atria, divini molyos usus ope. 
 Stat quoque juncosas Cami remeare paludes, 
 
 Atque iterum raucae murmur adire scholae. 
 Interea fidi parvum cape munus amici, 
 
 Paucaque in alternos verba coacta modos. 
 
 ELEGY I. TO CHARLES DEODATI. 
 
 AT length, my friend, the missive paper came, 
 Warm with your words, and hallow'd by your name : 
 Came from those fields which Cestrian Deva laves, 
 As prone he hurries to lerne's waves. 
 I joy to find my friendship thus confest, 
 Though regions part us, foster'd in your breast : 
 I joy, believe me, that a distant shore 
 Owes me a comrade and must soon restore, 
 Pleased with my native city, still 1 dwell 
 Where Thames's restless waters sink and swell. 
 Extinct my love of mansions, late denied, 
 No wish now leads me to Cam's reedy side: 
 Where genial shade the naked fields refuse 5 
 (Ah most unfriendly to the courted Muse!) 
 
66 LIFE OF MILTON. 
 
 confesses that he had no certain notice of his 
 opponent, further than what he had gathered 
 
 And ill my soul a master's threats can bear, 
 
 With all the fretting of the pedant's war. 
 
 If this be banishment, all cares aloof, 
 
 To live my own beneath a father's roof, 
 
 Still, let an idle world condemn or not, 
 
 Mine be a truant's name, an exile's lot* 
 
 O had no weightier ills oppress'd the doom 
 
 Of the sad bard in Tomi's wintry gloom; 
 
 Great Homer's self had seen a rival lay, 
 
 And Maro had resign'd his victor bay: 
 
 For here the Muses lead my hours along, 
 
 And all my day is study or is song. 
 
 Then tired, I hasten where the scene commands 
 
 The crowded theatre's applauding hands : 
 
 Whether it's fictions show, with mimic truth, 
 
 A cautious parent, or a spendthrift youth ; 
 
 A lover, or a peaceful son of war j 
 
 Or, bawling the base jargon of the bar, 
 
 Pompous, and pregnant with a ten -years' cause, 
 
 The prating, puzzled pleader of the laws. 
 
 There oft a servant aid the doating boy 
 
 To elude his sire, and gain his promised joy : 
 
 There a new feeling oft the maiden proves; 
 
 Knows not 'tis love, but while she knows not, loves. 
 
 Or there high tragedy, in wild despair, 
 
 Lifts her red hand and rends her streaming hair. 
 
 I look and weep: I weep yet look again, 
 
 And snatch from sorrow a delicious pain : 
 
 Whether the hapless youth, from love and life 
 
 Torn by strong fate, resign his virgin wife : 
 
 Or, hot from hell, the dire avenger stand, 
 
 Exerting o'er the wretch her Stygian brand: 
 
 Or heaven's dread wrath o'ertake, with tardy pace, 
 
 The crimes of Atreus in his bleeding race; 
 
 Or Creon's court atone the incestuous sire's embrace. 
 
LIFE OF MILTON. >7 
 
 from the " Animadversions;" and Milton 
 says, " x He blunders at me for the rest, and 
 
 Nor always do I lose, 'mid walls and streets, 
 Spring's painted blossoms and refreshing sweets. 
 Sometimes beneath my suburb grove I stray, 
 Where blending elms dispense a chequer'd clay: 
 Where passing beauties often strike my sight, 
 Diurnal stars that shoot a genial light. 
 With raptured gaze, ah ! often have I hung 
 On forms of power to make old Saturn young: 
 Ah ! often have I seen the radiant eye 
 Outblaze the gem, or Zembla's nightly skyj 
 The neck, more white than Pelops' ivory arm; 
 The nectar'd lip, with dewy rapture warmj 
 The front's resplendent grace; the playful hairs, 
 Compell'd by Love to weave his golden snares; 
 And the sweet power of cheek, where dimples wreathe, 
 And tints beyond the blush of Flora breathe. 
 Yield, famed Heroides! yield nymphs, who strove 
 With heaven's great empress for the heart of Jove ! 
 Stoop, Persian dames! your structured foreheads low I 
 Ye Grecian, Dardan, Reman damsels, bow! 
 And thou, Tarpeian poet,* cease to boast 
 Thy Pompey's porch, and theatre's bright host. 
 Let foreign nymphs the fruitless strife forbear: 
 Beauty's first prize belongs to Britain's fair. 
 Imperial London ! built by Trojan hands, 
 With towery head illustrious o'er the lands, 
 Happy thrice happy! what the sun beholds 
 Of female charms thy favour d wall infolds. 
 Not more the stars, whose beams illume thy night, 
 {Gay homagers of Luna's regent light,) 
 Than lovely maids, of faultless form and face, 
 Who o'er thy crowded paths diffuse a golden grace. 
 * Ovid. 
 
 x Apol. for Smectymnmis, P. W. i. 213. 
 
68 LITE OF MILTON. 
 
 flings out stray 7 crimes at a venture, which 
 he could never, though lie be a serpent, suck 
 from any thing that I have written*" 
 
 Notwithstanding this strong assertion, 
 the hostility of the present generation has 
 again brought the evidence of Milton to 
 convict Milton, and to establish the charges 
 
 Hither, 'tis thought, came wafted by her doves, 
 
 With all her shafts and war, the Queen of loves: 
 
 For this her Gnidos, Paphos, Ida scorn'd, 
 
 And Cyprus, with her rosy blush adorn'd. 
 
 But I, ere yet her sovereign power enthralls, 
 
 Prepare to fly these fascinating walls: 
 
 To shun with moly's aid, divine and chaste, 
 
 The courts by Circe's faithless sway disgraced j 
 
 And, (fix'd my visit to Cam's rushy pools,) 
 
 To bear once more the murmur of the schools. 
 
 But thou accept, to cheat the present time, 
 
 My pledge of iove, these lines eonstrain'd to rhyme. 
 
 As this translation was made during a period of peculiar soli- 
 citude, when my mind was fevered, or rather phrenzied with alter- 
 nate hopes and fears respecting a life far dearer to me than my own j 
 and was written, only by scraps, in the few less agitated moment's 
 which it was then my fortune to enjoy, it is perhaps the worst 
 of those versions which I have had the confidence to offer to 
 the public. But I will not now either replace it with another, 
 or even essentially alter it. With me it is consecrated by asso- 
 ciated ideas j and if the reader, to whom it now belongs, cannot 
 tolerate its imperfections, he may pass it over with a superficial 
 glance; and may either condemn or pity me as his judgment or 
 his sympathy may predominate. 
 
 y From the ff Animadversions* no suspicion of a charge against 
 their writer could by any process be extracted.. 
 
LIFE OF MILTON. 69 
 
 of his calumniator. In opposition to this 
 pretended evidence stand the records of our 
 author's university, and the force of his own 
 positive declarations. T$y the former of these, 
 which prove that he took his bachelor's de- 
 gree as soon as it could be taken/ it is made 
 highly probable, if not absolutely certain 
 that he lost no term; and by the latter 
 we are assured that he was not only ex- 
 empted from punishment during his con- 
 tinuance at Cambridge, but in that seat of 
 learning was an object of affection and re- 
 spect. The passage, which I shall cite as 
 worthy of the reader's attention, is in the 
 " Apology for Smectymnuus." After men- 
 tioning the charge which we have already no- 
 ticed, our author proceeds: " 2 For which com- 
 modious lie, that he may be encouraged in 
 the trade another time, I thank him: for it 
 hath given me an apt occasion to acknowledge 
 publickly with all grateful mind that more 
 than ordinary favour and respect which I 
 found above any of my equals at the hands 
 of those courteous and learned men, the fel- 
 lows of that college wherein I spent some 
 years : who at my parting, after I had taken 
 
 two degrees, as the manner is, signified many 
 I 
 
 >' In Jan. 1628-9. x P. W. i. 21p. 
 
70 LIFE OF MILTON. 
 
 ways how much better it would content them 
 that I would stay : as by many letters full of 
 kindness and loving respect, both before that 
 time and long after, I was assured of their 
 singular good affection towards me. Which, 
 being likewise propense to all such as were for 
 their studious and civil life \\orthy of esteem, 
 I could not wrong their judgments and up- 
 right intentions so much as to think I had 
 that regard from them for other cause than 
 that I might be still encouraged to proceed in 
 the honest and laudable courses of which 
 they apprehended I had given good proof." 
 
 The evidence now before us seems to be 
 conclusive; for I know not to what tribunal 
 an appeal can be carried from the authority 
 of the registers of an University, strengthened 
 with assertions, 3 publicly made and uncontra-* 
 dieted at a time when their falsehood would 
 be jealously watched and might easily be de- 
 tected. What interpretation then are we to 
 assign to those expressions in the elegy to 
 Deodali which certainly refer to some 
 
 a The slander was repeated, with some additional circum- 
 stances, by Du Moulin in his " Regii sanguinis Clamor ad coe- 
 lum." " A-iunt hominem Cantabrigiensi academia ob flagitja 
 pulsum, dedecus et flagitium fugisse et in Italiam commi- 
 grasse, p. 8. edit, printed 1(552. This is the vague and baseless 
 echo of the writer of the " Modest Confutation." We shall soon 
 Jiave occasion to cite our author's reply to this revived calumny. 
 
LIFE OF MILTON. 71 
 
 pulsive absence of the young student from his 
 college, and which discover no fondness in the 
 poet for the society or the country of Cam- 
 bridge? As we find from some lines in the 
 conclusion of the same elegy that it was his 
 intention to return to his college, we may fairly, 
 as I think, impute the banishment, of which 
 he speaks, to the want of pecuniary supplies 
 for his maintenance at the University; and 
 the example of Gray may instruct us, that it 
 is possible for a man of genius and of taste to 
 dislike the conversation of a college or the 
 naked vicinity of the Cam without being 
 impelled to that dislike by unpopularity or 
 injurious treatment. 
 
 The absurd story of the corporal punish- 
 ment, which Milton is asserted to have suf- 
 fered, may be regarded as undeserving of no- 
 ticed It was communicated, as we are in- 
 formed, with the pretence that it came from 
 himself or from some of his near relations, by 
 Aubrey to Wood ; but with Wood, ill-disposed 
 as he is known to have been to the fame of 
 Milton, it obtained so little credit as not to 
 find admission into his page. Can the testi- 
 mony then of Aubrey be received in this 
 instance as possessing any weight? On the 
 
 b Warton's Life of Dean Bathurst. 
 
72 LIFE OF MILTON. 
 
 value of that confirmation of this tale which 
 Mr. Warton, with dry positiveness, and Dr. 
 Johnson, with the insult of affected concern, 
 have pretended to discover in that expres- 
 sion of the last cited verses, " Caeteraque/ 
 &c. " and other things," I shall leave to 
 the reader to determine ; suggesting only 
 that Dr. Johnson, for the purpose of con- 
 cealing the weakness of his inference, has in- 
 timated a false translation of the passage, 
 or rather has drawn a conclusion not war- 
 ranted by his premises. He says that Mil- 
 ton declares himself weary of enduring " the 
 threats of a rigorous master, and something 
 else, which a temper like his cannot un- 
 dergo/' Here indeed he translates with suffi- 
 cient correctness ; but in the following sen- 
 tence this something else is changed into 
 something more, and we are told that what 
 was more than threat was evidently punish- 
 ment!!! The story then of the corporal cor- 
 rection, which has been raised into so much 
 false importance, seems to rest on too airy 
 a foundation to be worthy of our regard. 
 
 Of its admission however, as true, we 
 cannot perceive that any injury to the repu-, 
 tation of our author would be the necessary 
 result. While the rod continued to be aa 
 
LIFE OF MILTO3ST. 73 
 
 instrument of punishment at our Universi- 
 ties for the boys who then frequented them, 
 its infliction would be followed by no more 
 disgrace than it is at present in our schools ; 
 and, in either place, it must be the offence 
 and not the chastisement which can pro- 
 perly be considered as the occasion of dis- 
 honour. With respect to Milton, c we may be 
 confident that no immorality could be the 
 cause of his punishment. Religion, as we 
 know, took early possession of his bosom; 
 and he, who with weak eyes and an aching 
 head could consecrate one half of the night 
 to study, cannot be suspected of stealing the 
 other half from repose for the purpose of 
 confounding it with excess or of polluting 
 it with debauch. A mind indeed, like his, 
 exulting in the exercise of its higher powers 
 and intent on the pursuit of knowledge, could 
 not, without a violation of its nature, submit 
 to licentious indulgencies. The cultivation 
 of intellect not only diverts the attention 
 from sensual pleasure, but inspires d a pride 
 
 c Even Mr. Warton, averse as he is from any favourable 
 mention of Milton as a man, is forced to say on the subject 
 of the punishment, that he will not suppose that it was for any 
 immoral irregularity. See note on Eleg. i. v. 12. in the ed. of 
 Milton's Juvenile Poems. 
 
 d Milton talks in the same strain : he from feeling and I from 
 observation. <f These reasonings, together with a certain nice- 
 
74 LIFE OF MILTON. 
 
 which subdues its fascination; and while the 
 spectacle of the world exhibits innumerable 
 instances of men of genius hurrying into ex- 
 cessive gratification, it scarcely presents us 
 with one, under the influence of the same 
 unfortunate error, among the assiduous vota- 
 ries of knowledge. 
 
 But if Milton, the religious and the stu- 
 dious Milton were not censurable for his im- 
 moral irregularities, by what means, it may 
 be asked, could he become obnoxious to the 
 governours of his college? We may answer 
 without difficulty, that he might offend their 
 prejudices by the bold avowal of his puritan 
 opinions: or he might wound their pride by 
 his exposure of their negligent or injudici- 
 ous discharge of duty: or, lastly, he might 
 excite their displeasure by his haughty in- 
 attention to their rules, and by his refusing 
 perhaps to quit the banquet of his intellect 
 or his imagination, on the page of Plato or of 
 Homer, for the barren fatigue of translating 
 a sermon or of throwing on his memory some 
 
 c ness of nature, an honest haughtiness and self-esteem either of 
 ' what I was or what I might be, (which let envy call pride), 
 ( and lastly, a becoming modesty, all uniting the supply of their 
 ' natural aid together, kept me still above those low descents 
 ' of mind, beneath which he must deject and plunge himself 
 f( that can agree to saleable and unlawful prostitutions." 
 
 Apol. for Smect. P. W. 1. 224. 
 
LIFE OF MILTON. 75 
 
 cumbrous pages of scholastic divinity. He 
 had already, as we may fairly infer, imbibed 
 from his presbyterian tutor, Young, a dislike 
 to the discipline of our church; and we are 
 assured, by more than one passage in his own 
 works, that he looked with no friendly eye 
 either on the plan of education e observed 
 in the University, or on the learning f and 
 the conduct g of its members. We may con- 
 ceive therefore that he might be excluded 
 from the favour of his superiors in the col- 
 lege, and even be exposed to their censures 
 without incurring the slightest loss of cha- 
 racter, or sustaining the most trifling dimi- 
 nution of our esteerti. 
 
 In his " Second Defence," published 
 twelve years after the " Apology for Smec- 
 tymnuus," he again asserts the purity of his 
 college life; and affirms, in opposition to his 
 adversary's calumnies, that he passed seven 
 years at the University, pure from every 
 blemish and in possession of the esteem of 
 the good, till he took with applause his de* 
 gree of master of arts; that he then retired 
 to his father's house, and left behind him a 
 memory which was cherished with affection 
 and respect by the greater part of the fellows 
 
 e Treatise on Ed. to Hartlib. f Epist. Alex. Gillio, Jul. 1, 
 & Apology for Smectymnuus. 
 
1'6 LIFE OF MILTON. 
 
 of his college, who had always been assidu- 
 ous in cultivating his regard. 11 
 
 Here therefore we must finally rest; and, 
 throwing from our fancies every idea which 
 can suggest our author as the object of posi- 
 tive punishment, (of any thing more, we mean, 
 than of those impositions, perhaps, which are 
 injoined for trivial omissions and trespasses 
 against the college forms,) we must decide 
 that his morals at the University conciliated 
 the general esteem, while his learning and his 
 talents excited the general applause. Of his 
 learning and his talents indeed he had ex- 
 hibited, during this period, such decisive and 
 brilliant proofs as to place above question 
 his uncommon acquisitions and powers, and 
 undoubtedly to draw on him the gaze and 
 admiration of all who knew and were capable 
 of appreciating his possessions. 
 
 In the seven years of his academical life, 
 however he might complain of " the rushy 
 marshes and the naked banks of the Cam" as 
 unfriendly to the Muses, he discovered that 
 
 h fe Illic (Cantabrigia) disciplinis atq; artibus tradi solitis 
 septennium studui; procul omni flagitio, bonis omnibus pro- 
 batus usquedum magistri, quern vocant, gradum cum laude 
 etiam adcptus, non ftaliam, quod impurus illc comminiscitur, 
 profugi, sed sponte mea,domum me contuli, meiqj etiam desi- 
 derium apud collegii plerosq; socios, a quibns eram baud me- 
 diocriter cultus, reliqui." Defen. secun. P. W. v. 230. 
 
LIFE OF MILTON. 77 
 
 neither " soft shades/' nor a retirement from 
 " the murmur of the hoarse schools" were 
 essentially necessary to his inspiration. In 
 this space of time his vigorous and ardent 
 genius broke out in frequent flashes, and evi- 
 dently disclosed the future author of Comus 
 and of Paradise Lost. We have already no- 
 ticed, on the testimony of Aubrey which 
 may be received as to the fact in question, 
 that Milton was a poet when he was only 
 ten years old; and his translation of the 
 130th psalm, which we still possess, suffi- 
 ciently evinces his progress in poetic expres- 
 sion at the early age of fifteen. \Yhen we 
 read in this small work of " the golden-tress- 
 ed sun/' of the moon shining among " her 
 spangled sisters of the night;" of the Al- 
 mighty smiting the first-born of Egypt with 
 " his thunder-clasping hand," we are forced 
 to acknowledge the buddings of the rising 
 poet, the first shootings of the infant oak 
 which in later times was to overshadow the 
 forest. 
 
 At the age to which we have now fol- 
 lowed him, or from the commencement of 
 his academic career, his genius rushed ra- 
 pidly to its maturity; and, like the Neptune 
 of his favourite Homer, he may be consi- 
 dered as having made only three majestic 
 
78 LIFE OF MILTON. 
 
 strides to the summit on which he stands 
 and beholds no superior. If we plant his first 
 step at the beautiful little poem on the death of 
 his sister's child, his second may be regarded 
 as fixed on his sublime though unequal ode 
 " On the Morning of Christ's Nativity/' and 
 his third as reaching to his Comus. These 
 compositions seem to be separated by nearly 
 equal intervals as well with respect to the 
 time as with reference to the power of their 
 production. The last of these poems, with 
 its bright companions, the Lycidas I/ Alle- 
 gro and 11 Penseroso, does not belong to the 
 period under our notice, and shall be at- 
 tended to in its place: but it will be proper 
 not to pass the two former without remark, 
 as they tend to exhibit to us the march of a 
 mighty genius, in progress to supreme triumph. 
 In the first of them, " On the death of a 
 fair Infant/' 1 written when our author was 
 only seventeen, we find the boy-poet moving 
 with grace and harmony under the shackles 
 of rhyme, and managing a stanza of seven 
 lines with facility and effect. If he occa- 
 sionally indulges in those conceits which ble- 
 mished all the poetry of that age, his thoughts 
 are more frequently just, and he is sometimes 
 
 1 Our author's niece, a daughter of his sister, Mrs. Philips. 
 
LIFE OF MILTON. 79 
 
 tender arid sometimes sublime. The personi- 
 fication of Winter, in his " ice-y pearled car/' 
 is conceived and expressed in the spirit of ge- 
 nuine poetry; and the 5th, 6th, 8th, 9th, and 
 10th stanzas entertain us with a crowd of beau- 
 ties, unneighboured by a thought, a line, or 
 almost an expression, which we can be de- 
 sirous of changing, I shall cite the fifth 
 stanza for its peculiar merit; and the sixth, 
 as it seems to have suggested to Dryden one 
 of those sublime ideas with which he opens 
 his noble ode on the death of Mrs. Anne 
 
 Killeo-rew. 
 
 v. 
 
 Yet can I not persuade me thou art dead j 
 
 Or that thy corse corrupts in Earth's dark "womb; 
 
 Or that thy beauties lie in wormy bed, 
 Hid from the world in a low-delved tomb. 
 Could Heaven for pity thee so strictly doom ? 
 
 Oh no! for something in thy face did shine 
 
 Above mortality that show'd thou wast divine. 
 
 VI. 
 
 Resolve me then, O soul most surely blest! 
 (If so it be that thou these plaints dost hear) 
 
 Tell me, bright Spirit, where'er thou hoverest, 
 Whether above that high first moving sphere, 
 Or in the Elysian fields (if such there were) ? 
 
 Oh say me true, if thou wert mortal wight ? 
 
 And why from us so quickly thou didst take thy flight?* 
 
 k I subjoin the passage in Dryden's Ode to which I have referred. 
 
 Whether adopted to some neighbouring star, 
 
 Thou roll'st above us in thy wand'ring race : 
 Or,, in procession fix'd aud regular, 
 
80 LITE OF MILTON* 
 
 The seventh stanza is the most objection- 
 able of the poem: in the first and the se- 
 cond, the thought which, at the first glance, 
 might secrn to require defence, is certainly 
 correct: in the first indeed it is beautifully 
 poetic. When the poet asks whether the 
 object of his lamentation were 
 
 that JUST MAID, who once before 
 
 Forsook the hated earth, &c. 
 
 and when he says, 
 
 And thou, the mother of so sweet a child, 
 HER false imagined loss cease to lament, &c. 
 
 it is rather strange that both Tickell and 
 Fenton should call this fair infant the NE- 
 PHEW of our author. 
 
 In the ode " On the Morning of Christ's 
 Nativity/' written after an interval of four 
 years, we trace the flight of a more power- 
 ful fancy, and distinguish beauties of a su- 
 perior order mingled with defects perhaps of 
 a greater magnitude. It discloses indeed in 
 most of its parts the vicious taste of the age ; 
 but even where it is most erroneous it dis- 
 closes also the power of the poet. The fourth 
 
 Moved with the heavens' majestic pace: 
 Or call'd to more superior bliss, 
 Thou tread'st with Seraphim the dread abyss, &c. 
 
LIFE OF MILTON. 81 
 
 stanza of the hymn is the offspring, at once, 
 of correct judgment and of strong imagina- 
 tion; and its merit is not lessened by the in- 
 trusion of a thought or a word which the 
 nicest critic would wish to be expelled. 
 
 No war or battle's sound 
 
 Was heard the Avorld around : 
 The idle spear and shield were high uphung. 
 
 The hooked chariot stood, 
 
 Unstain'd with hostile blood : 
 The trumpet spake not to the armed throng j 
 
 And kings sate still with awful eye, 
 
 As if they surely knew their sovrain Lord was nigh. 
 
 The following stanza is not quite so un- 
 exceptionable and pure; but its errors are 
 venial, and it closes beautifully 
 
 k Who now hath quite forgot to rave, 
 While birds of calm sit brooding on the charmed wave. 
 
 The thirteen succeeding stanzas are dis- 
 figured by numerous conceits: but from the 
 nineteenth, 
 
 The oracles are dumb, &c. 
 
 to the conclusion of the ode, we are struck 
 with the most forcible exhibition of the highest 
 poetry. In the course of these nine stanzas 
 we may perhaps be inclined to object to a 
 few accidendal words; but we cannot with- 
 hold our wonder from that vigour of concep- 
 
 k Ocean. 
 G 
 
82 LIFE OP MILTON. 
 
 tion which has breathed a soul into the 
 painting, and placed it in warm and stre- 
 nuous animation before our eyes. On the 
 topic of this superior composition, we may 
 further remark the deep knowledge which it 
 discovers; and may point admiration to the 
 masterly hand with which the poet has thrown 
 the rich mantle of his fancy over the curious 
 erudition of the scholar. 
 
 Besides these two little poems, which 
 have been selected only as instances of the 
 progress of our author's English Muse, he 
 produced some other small pieces of poetry 
 in his native language, which are all distin- 
 guished by beauties and faults and disco- 
 ver strong power with an unformed taste. 
 When, in the verses written " At a solemn 
 Music/' we read the following lines, where, 
 speaking of the wedded sounds of the harmo* 
 nious sisters, Voice and Verse, the young poet 
 says that they are 
 
 Dead things with inbreathed sense able to pierce, 
 
 And to our high-raised phantasy present 
 
 That undisturbed song of pure concent, 
 
 Ay sung before the sapphire-colour'd throne, 
 
 To Him that sits thereon, 
 With saintly shout and solemn jubilee: 
 Where the bright Seraphim in burning row, 
 And the cherubic host in thousand quires 
 Touch their immortal harps of golden wires., &c. 
 
LIFE OF MILTON, S3 
 
 we acknowledge some touches prelusive to 
 the Paradise Lost; and the following passage 
 of the " Vacation Exercise/' in which he per- 
 sonifies and addresses his native language, 
 may be regarded as intimating a faint and 
 doubtful promise of that divine poem: 
 
 Yet I would rather, if I were to choose,, 
 
 Thy service in some graver subject use; 
 
 Such as may make thee search thy coffers round. 
 
 Before thou clothe my fancy in fit sound : 
 
 Such where the deep transported mind may soar 
 
 Above the wheeling poles, and at heaven's door 
 
 Look in and see each blissful Deity, 
 
 How he before the thunderous throne doth lie, &c. 
 
 But whatever emanations of genius may 
 throw a light over his English poems, com- 
 posed at this early stage of his life, there is 
 much in all these pieces to be regretted and 
 pardoned by the correct and classical reader. 
 To his Latin poems however, of the same 
 date, no such observation is in any degree 
 applicable. Immediately conversant with 
 the great masters of composition, he adopts 
 their taste with their language; and, with 
 the privilege as with the ease of a native, 
 assumes his station in their ranks. For fluency 
 and sweetness of numbers, for command 
 and purity of expression, for variety and cor- 
 rectness of imagery, we shall look in vain for 
 his equal among the Latin poets of his age 
 
84 LIFE OF MILTON. 
 
 and his country. May, the continuator and 
 imitator of Lucan; and Cowley, 1 whose taste 
 and thought are English and metaphysical 
 while his verse walks upon Roman feet, will 
 never, as I am confident, be placed in com- 
 petition with our author by any adequate 
 and unprejudiced judge. I speak with more 
 direct reference to his elegies, which were all 
 written in that interval of his life immedi- 
 ately under our review, and which, evidently 
 composed with the most entire affection, are 
 executed on the whole with the most com- 
 plete success. He was particularly fond in his 
 youth, as he tells us himself, of " the smooth 
 elegiac poets, whom, both for the pleasing 
 sound of their numerous writing, which in 
 imitation he found most easy and most agree- 
 able to nature's part in him; and for their 
 matter, which what it is there be few who 
 know not, he was so allured to read, that no 
 recreation came to him better welcome/' 10 
 
 But of the elegiac writers Ovid seems 
 to have been his favourite and his model. 
 We may sometimes discover Tibullus in his 
 
 1 That Cowley was capable of writing Latin poetry with 
 classical purity would be attested by his beautiful epitaph on 
 himself, if even this short composition were not injured by the 
 Intrusion of one line of Cowleian quaintness and conceit. 
 
 " Nam vita gaudet mortua floribus." 
 * Apol. for Smect. P. W. I. 223. 
 
LIFE OF MILTOIC. 85 
 
 pages, but Ovid is diffused over them. He 
 will not however suffer his respect for the 
 Roman models, as Mr. Warton has justly re- 
 marked, to oppress his powers or to deprive 
 him of his own distinct and original charac- 
 ter. He wields their language with the most 
 perfect mastery, and, without wishing, like 
 Cowley, to compel it to any unclassical ser- 
 vice, employs it as an obedient instrument* 
 
 Of these poems, which are of great though 
 various merit, the fifth, written in the author's 
 twentieth year on the return of spring, and 
 the sixth, addressed in his twenty-first year to 
 his friend Deodati, seem to be entitled to the 
 praise of superior excellence. In these ele- 
 gies there appears to be a more masterly 
 arrangement and a greater variety of po- 
 etic imagery and allusion than in their fel- 
 lows : though the fourth, written in his 
 eighteenth year to his former preceptor 
 Young ; and the seventh, in which the poet, 
 at the age of nineteen, describes with ten- 
 derness and sensibility the transient effects 
 of love upon his bosom, must be admitted 
 to very high and distinguished praise. The 
 object, as it may be proper to mention, of 
 the love, which he has thus commemorated, 
 was a lady whom he accidentally saw in one 
 of the public walks near the metropolis 
 
86 LIFE OF MILTOJST. 
 
 and of whom, on her sudden disappearance 
 among the crowd, he could never obtain any 
 further intelligence. 
 
 A critical eye may sometimes detect in 
 these compositions an expression which an 
 Augustan writer would not perhaps acknow- 
 ledge as authentic; and a reader of taste may 
 sometimes wish for more compression in the 
 style, and may be sorry that the youthful 
 poet did not occasionally follow some model 
 of more nerve than the diffuse and languid 
 Ovid. On the whole however these produc- 
 tions must be regarded as possessing rare 
 and pre-eminent merit. To England indeed 
 they are peculiarly interesting, as they were 
 the first pieces which extended her fame for 
 Latin poetry to the continent; and as they 
 evince the various power of her illustrious 
 bard by showing that he, who subsequently 
 approved himself to be her ^Eschylus and 
 her Homer, could once flow in the soft num- 
 bers and breathe the tender sentiments of 
 Ovid and Tibullus. 
 
 The only prose compositions of this date, 
 which we possess of our author's, are some 
 of his college and University exercises, un- 
 der the title of " Prolusiones oratoriae," and 
 five of his familiar letters; four of them in 
 Latin to his old preceptors, Young and Gill, 
 
LIFE OF MILTON, 87 
 
 and one in English, forming his answer to a 
 friend who had censured him for wasting his 
 life in literary pursuits, and had urged him 
 to forsake his study for some of the active oc- 
 cupations of the world. This letter, of which 
 Dr. Birch has published the rough and the 
 corrected draught from the author's MSS. 
 in the library of Trinity college, Cambridge, 
 concludes with a very impressive sonnet; 
 and is particularly interesting for the view 
 which it gives to us of the writer's delicacy 
 of principle and of the high motives which 
 actuated his bosom. The reader, as I per- 
 suade myself, will thank me for communi* 
 eating it* 
 
 " SIR, 
 
 " Besides that in sundry other re- 
 spects I must acknowledge me to profit by 
 you whenever we meet, you are often to 
 me, and were yesterday especially, as a good 
 Watchman to admonish that the hours of 
 the night pass on, (for so I call my life as 
 yet obscure and unserviceable to mankind,) 
 and that the day with me is at hand, wherein 
 Christ commands all to labour while there is 
 light. Which because I am persuaded you 
 do to no other purpose than out of a true 
 desire that God should be honoured m 
 
88 LIFE OF MILTON*. 
 
 every one, I therefore think myself bound* 
 though unasked, to give you account, as oft 
 as occasion is, of this my tardy moving, ac- 
 cording to the precept of my conscience 
 which, I firmly trust, is not without God. 
 Yet now I will not strain for any set apolo- 
 gy, but only refer myself to what my mind 
 shall have at any time to declare herself 
 at her best ease. But if you think, as you 
 said, that too much love of learning is in 
 fault, and that I have given up myself to 
 dream away my years in the arms of stu- 
 dious retirement, like Endymion with the 
 moon, as the tale of Latmus goes; yet con- 
 sider, that if it were no more but the mere 
 love of learning, whether it proceeds from a 
 principle bad, good, or natural, it could not 
 have held out thus long against so strong op- 
 position on the other side of every kind. For 
 if it be bad, why should not all the fond 
 hopes that forward youth and vanity are 
 fledge with, together with gain pride and 
 ambition, call me forward more powerfully 
 than a poor regardless and unprofitable sin 
 of curiosity should be able to withhold me, 
 whereby a man cuts himself off from all ac- 
 tion, and becomes the most helpless pusil- 
 lanimous and unweaponed creature in the 
 world, the most unfit and unable to do that 
 
LIFE OF MILTON. 89 
 
 which all mortals most aspire to, either to be 
 useful to his friends or to offend his ene- 
 mies. Or if it be to be thought a natural 
 proneness, there is against that a much more 
 potent inclination inbred, which about this 
 time of a man's life sollicits most, the desire 
 of house and family of his own, to which 
 nothing is esteemed more helpful than the 
 early entering into credible employment, and 
 nothing hindering than this affected solitari- 
 ness. And though this were enough, yet 
 there is to this another act, if not of pure 
 yet of refined nature, no less available to 
 dissuade prolonged obscurity, a desire of ho- 
 nour and repute and immortal fame seated 
 in the breast of every true scholar, which all 
 make haste to by the readiest ways of pub- 
 lishing and divulging conceived merits, as 
 well those that shall as those that never shall 
 obtain it. Nature therefore would presently 
 work the more prevalent way, if there were 
 nothing but this inferior bent of herself to 
 restrain her. Lastly, the love of learning, 
 as it is the pursuit of something good, it 
 would sooner follow the more excellent and 
 supreme good known and presented, and so 
 be quickly diverted from the empty and fan- 
 tastic chace of shadows and notions to the 
 solid good flowing from due and timely 
 
90 LIFE OF MILTON. 
 
 obedience to that command in the gospel 
 set out by the terrible seizing of him that 
 hid the talent. It is more probable there- 
 fore, that not the endless delight of specu- 
 lation, but this very consideration of that 
 great commandment does not press forward, 
 as soon as many do, to undergo, but keeps 
 off with a sacred reverence and religious ad- 
 visement how best to undergo; not taking 
 thought of being late, so it give advantage 
 to be more fit; for those that were latest 
 lost nothing, when the master of the vine- 
 yard came to give each one his hire. And 
 here I am come to a stream-head, copious 
 enough to disburden itself like Nilus at seven 
 mouths into an ocean. But then I should 
 also run into a reciprocal contradiction of 
 ebbing and flowing at once, and do that, 
 which I excuse myself for not doing, 6 preach 
 and not preach.' Yet that you may see that 
 I am something suspicious of myself and 
 do take notice of a certain belatedness in 
 me, I am the bolder to send you some of my 
 nightward thoughts some while since, be- 
 cause they come in not altogether unfitly, 
 made up in a Petrarchian stanza, which I 
 told you of. 
 
 " How soon hath time, the subtle thief of youth, 
 Stolen on his wing my three and twentieth year! 
 My hasting days fly on with full career $ 
 
LIFE OF MILTON. 91 
 
 But my late spring no bud or blossom shew'th. 
 Perhaps my semblance might deceive the truth, 
 
 That I to manhood am arrived so near, 
 
 And inward ripeness doth much less appear, 
 
 That some more timely-happy spirits indu'th. 
 Yet be it less or more, or soon or slow, 
 
 It shall be still in strictest measure even 
 
 To that same lot, however mean or high, 
 Towards which time leads me, and the will of Heaven. 
 
 All is, if I have grace to use it so, 
 
 As ever in my great task-master's eye." 
 
 " By this I believe you may well repent 
 of having made mention at all of this matter; 
 for if I have not all this while won you to 
 this, I have certainly wearied you of it. This 
 therefore alone may be a sufficient reason 
 for me to keep me as I am, lest, having 
 thus tired you singly, I should deal worse 
 with a whole congregation and spoil all the 
 patience of a parish: for I myself do not 
 only see my own tediousness, but now grow 
 offended with it that has hindered me thus 
 long from coming to the last and best period 
 of my letter, and that which must now 
 chiefly work my pardon, that I am your 
 true and unfeigned friend." 
 
 On his taking the degree of master of arts 
 in 1632," having taken that of bachelor, as we 
 
 n In a little poem (< De Idea Platonica/' written by our au- 
 thor while he was at the University, there is a most striking per- 
 sonification of Eternity 
 
92 LIFE Of MILTON, 
 
 have already observed, in l628-9> he left Cam- 
 bridge to reside at Horton in Buckingham- 
 shire, where his father lived on a competent 
 fortune which he had acquired by his bu- 
 siness. 
 
 That Milton quitted the University with- 
 out obtaining a fellowship has been sug- 
 gested as a proof of the disapprobation of 
 
 Quaeque in immense procul 
 Antro recumbis otiosa ^Eternitas 
 Monumenta servans et ratas leges Jovis, &c. 
 
 And thou Eternity, who dost diffuse 
 O'er all the enormous cave thy giant limbs 
 In grand repose, and guard'st the laws of Jove, 
 And the high structures of his glorious hand. 
 
 In our author's poem to his father there is also a very nobler 
 line in which he speaks with equal sublimity of Eternity: 
 
 JEternaeque morae stabunt immobilis sevi. 
 The eternal pause of age for ever fix'd. 
 
 The poem which he wrote about this time, ( 1 #28,) for one of 
 the Fellows of his college, on the subject of the unimpaired 
 vigour of nature, " Naturam non pati senium," possesses the merit, 
 in a most uncommon degree, of poetic fancy and of poetic dic 
 tion. See his letter to Alexander Gill, July 2, 1628. 
 
 He incepted, (to speak the academic language of Cambridge,) 
 A.M. at the end of ihe Lent term in 1632; and he took his for- 
 mer degree, as we have before stated in Jan. 1628-9. 
 
 In the ordo senioritatis Baccalaureis reservatae, among twenty- 
 four, he occupies the fourth place. Of his own college, he was 
 one of thirty who became B. A. at the same time; and one of 
 twenty-seven who were made M. A. Among the M.A's his 
 name in the subscription-book stands the first. 
 
LIFE OF MILTON. 93 
 
 his college. But let it be recollected that 
 in his time there was only one fellowship in 
 his college tenable by a layman, and that, 
 as he had now determined against entering 
 into the church for reasons p which, hallowed 
 by conscience, are entitled to our respect, the 
 attainment of a common fellowship, to be 
 held only for a very limited term, could not 
 be among the objects of his life. The com- 
 petence also, of which he was assured from 
 his father, would place him above the wish 
 of any thing to be obtained by solicitation; 
 and it is not impossible that, associating 
 the idea of a fellow of a college, as the go- 
 vernor of a community, with that of some 
 duty to be discharged by residence, he would 
 decline a situation which must preclude him 
 from the range of the world. 
 
 The five years, which he passed under his 
 father's roof, q may justly be regarded as the 
 
 Founded by Edward VI. Two other lay -fellowships have 
 since been founded by sir John Finch, and sir Thomas Bainei. 
 
 P " perceiving, that he who would take orders must sub- 
 scribe slave, and take an oath withall, which unless he took with 
 a conscience that could retch, he must either strain perforce or 
 split his faith; I thought it better to prefer a blameless silence 
 before the office of speaking, bought and begun with servitude 
 and forswearing." Reasons of Church Gov. P. W. i. 123. . 
 
 * This house, as Mr. Todd says on the authority of the rector 
 of Horton, was pulled down about fourteen years ago. 
 
94 LIFE OF MILTON. 
 
 happiest of his life/ In literary leisure and 
 the company of an intelligent and beloved 
 father; with a select correspondence and an 
 occasional intercourse with the society, the 
 sciences and the arts of the metropolis, the 
 temperance of his enjoyment must have been 
 completely satisfied; and the fruition of the 
 tranquil present was not disturbed by any 
 alarming prescience of the dark and stormy 
 future. In a passage of his spirited poem to 
 his father, written, as it is probable, about this 
 time, he seems conscious of his high destiny, 
 and magnanimously exults over those evils 
 which he knew, by the experience of all ages, 
 to be inseparably attached to it. 
 
 Este procul vigiles curae ! procul este querelae, 
 Invidiseque acies transverso tortilis hirquo: 
 Saeva nec r anguiferos extende calumnia rictus: 
 
 r Paterno rure, quo is transigendae senectutis causa concesse- 
 rat, evolvendis Graecis Latinisque scriptoribus summum per otium 
 totusvacavi; ita tamen ut nonnunquam rus urbe mutarem, aut 
 coemendorum gratia librorum, aut novum quidpiam in Mathe- 
 maticis vel in Musicis, quibus turn oblectabar, addiscendi. 
 
 Defen. secund. P. W. v. 230. 
 
 r tr Anguiferos rictus/' is certainly an inaccurate expression. 
 Vipereos rictus, if the verse had permitted it, would have been 
 unexceptionable. " Calumnia" is, I fear, the property of prose 
 rather than of poetry. It occurs frequently in Cicero, and somei- 
 times as a forensic word 3 but never in Virgil, nor, as I believe,, 
 in any of the Augustan poets. Many of Milton's expressions in 
 his Latin poems are not supported by high classical authority. 
 
LIFE OF MILTOX. 95 
 
 In me triste nihil foedissima turba potestis, 
 Nee vestri sum juris ego; securaque tutus 
 Pectora, vipereo gradiar sublimis ab ictu. 
 
 Hence wakeful Cares and pining Sorrows fly ! 
 Hence leering Envy with your sidelong eye! 
 Slander in vain thy viper jaws expand! 
 No harm can touch me from your hateful band: 
 Alien from you, my breast, in virtue strong, 
 Derides the menace of your reptile throng. 
 
 But he could only calculate the contin- 
 gencies, not fasten his sight, (if the expression 
 may be allowed to me,) on the realities of fu- 
 turity. If some minister of the divine wrath, 
 commissioned to disclose the vision of our 
 poet's advancing life, had at this instant 
 exhibited to him the Milton of later days, 
 sacrificing his prime of manhood to the sul- 
 len and fiery demon of religious and civil! 
 discord; exposed to rancorous and savage! 
 calumny; making a cheerful surrender of his 
 sight to the cause, as he deemed it, of hi:$ 
 country and his species, yet afterwards aban - 
 doned and persecuted; with his public ob- 
 jects lost, his private fortune ruined, hr> 
 society avoided, his name pronounced with 
 execration, his life itself saved only by u 
 kind of miracle from an ignominious and a 
 torturing execution, and his old age, more , 
 deeply clouded also by the unkindness oif 
 children, finally closing amid dangers and'^ 
 
LIFE OF MILTON. 
 
 alarms, in solitude and darkness if this 
 scene, I say, in its full deformity had been 
 exposed to our poet's eye in his happy re- 
 treat at Horton, the cup of joy would have 
 fallen from his hand; his fortitude, strong as 
 we know it to have been, would probably 
 have yielded to the shock; and, prostrate 
 before the Father of mercies, he would have 
 poured his soul in solicitous supplication for 
 the refuge of an early grave. 
 
 But of the world of destiny, as it was 
 passing, one spot alone was discovered to 
 him ; and all that was unknown was peopled 
 by hope with her own gay and beautiful pro- 
 geny. While he passed his hours in converse 
 with the mighty dead, or with the wise and 
 yirtuous living; while, unmolested by any 
 agitating or painful passions, he penetrated 
 science with his intellect or traversed fairy 
 regions with his fancy, he enjoyed an inter- 
 val of happiness on which, amid the asperi- 
 ties of his later years, he must frequently 
 liave looked back with emotions nearly simi- 
 lar to those of the traveller, who, wandering 
 over the moors of Lapland and beaten by 
 an arctic storm, reflects on the blue skies, 
 the purple clusters and the fragrant orange 
 groves of Italy. 
 
 To this favoured period of our author's 
 
LIFJG OF HULtOX. $7 
 
 life ar we indebted for some of the most 
 exquisite productions of his genius. The 
 Comus, in l6'34^ and the Lycidas, in 1637, 
 were unquestionably written at Horton; and 
 there is the strongest internal evidence to 
 prove that the Arcades, L' Allegro, and II 
 Penseroso were also composed in this rural 
 fccene and this season of delightful leisure; 
 It is probable, indeed, that the composition 
 of the " Arcades" preceded that of the " Co- 
 mus/' as the countess dowager of Derby, 5 for 
 whom it was written, seems, from her resi- 
 dence at Harefield in the vicinity of Horton 
 and from her double alliance with the family 
 of Egerton, to have been the connecting link 
 between the author and the earl of Bridge- 
 water,' the immediate patron of Comus. 
 
 These pieces have been so frequently 
 hiadc the subjects of critical remark, that 
 a long suspension of our narrative would not 
 
 s Alice, countess dowager of Derby, was the sixth daughter 
 of sir John Spencer of Althorpe in Northamptonshire, and mar- 
 ried lord Strange, who by the death of his father in 15Q4 be- 
 came earl of Derby, and died in the following year. She after- 
 wards rriarried the lord chancellor Egerton, who died in l6l/: 
 her daughter, Frances, married the chancellor's son, John earl 
 of Bridgewater lord president of Wales. She was of the same 
 family with Spenser the poet; and had been his patroness 
 and his theme of praise before she was celebrated by the Muse 
 of Milton. 
 
 1 The earl of Bridgewater was the proprietor also of Hortc-n. 1 
 
 H 
 
98 LIFE OF MILTON. 
 
 be compensated by any novelty in the obser- 
 vations which could be offered on them. 
 The Arcades u is evidently nothing more than 
 the poetic part of an entertainment the bulk 
 of which was formed of prose dialogue and 
 machinery. But, whatever portion it consti- 
 tuted of the piece, it was of sufficient conse- 
 quence to impart a value to the whole; and 
 it discovers a kindred though inferior lustre 
 to that richest produce of the mines of fancy, 
 the dramatic poem of Comus. 
 
 u I am rather surprised that Mr. Warton, who with his bro- 
 ther commentators frequently detects imitation in a single and, 
 sometimes not uncommon word, should omit to notice, in the 
 speech of the Genius, an open trespass on the property of Shak- 
 speare. The Genius says, 
 
 I see bright honour sparkle in your eyes : 
 
 dnd Helena, in <f All's well that ends well," addressing one of 
 the young lords, from whom she was to select her husband, uses 
 nearly the same expression 
 
 The honour, sir, which flames in your fair eyes, 
 Before I speak too threateningly replies." z 
 
 * The readers of Milton's juvenile poetry are under consider- 
 able obligations to Mr. Warton : but this gentleman, like other 
 commentators, sometimes employs much perverse ingenuity in 
 making what is plain obscure, what is good bad. Accumulating 
 passages, in a note on verse 8 1 of this piece 
 
 And so attend ye on her glittering state, 
 
 to prove that the word " state" was used by our old poets to ex- 
 press that particular part of the royal apparatus, a canopy, (in 
 
LIFE OP MILTOIS Y . 99 
 
 The Mask of Comus was acted before the 
 earl of Bridge water, the president of Wales, in 
 1634, at Ludlow Castle; and the characters 
 of the Lady and the two Brothers were repre- 
 sented by the lady Alice Egerton, then about 
 thirteen years of age, and her two brothers, 
 lord Brackley and the Hon. Thomas Egerton* 
 who were still younger. The story of this 
 piece is said to have been suggested by the 
 circumstance of the lady Alice having been 
 separated from her company in the night 
 and having wandered for some time by her- 
 self in the forest of Hay wood/ as she was 
 
 not one of which passages, by the bye, may <f state" be consi- 
 dered as possessing any meaning different from what would be 
 assigned to it by a modern poet,) he tells us that in this sense, 
 (of canopy,) is state" to be understood in the description of the 
 swan in the 7th book of Paradise Lost: 
 
 The swan with arched neck 
 Between her white wings mantling, proudly rows 
 Her state with oary feet. 
 
 i. e. the swan with arched neck, between the mantling of her 
 white wings, proudly rdws her canopy, (her head and bent neck) 
 with her feet for oars. Having established this sense of the pas- 
 sage, he very properly accuses the great poet of an affected and 
 unnatural conceit ! ! ! If this be not ingenuity become mad, mis- 
 chievous, and dull I will appeal, from the black letter critics, 
 to all the readers of taste, 
 
 t( From old Bellerinm to the northern main." 
 
 ' 
 
 y See Warton's note on Comus, said to be mentioned in a MS. 
 by Oldy s,1.34. 
 
100 LIFE OF MILTON. 
 
 returning from a distant visit to meet her 
 father on his taking possession of his newly 
 intrusted sceptre. On this small base of fact 
 a most sumptuous and beautiful edifice of 
 fancy has been constructed. 
 
 Comus* KHMOI, or revelry, 2 had been 
 personified, as Mn Warton has remarked be- 
 fore me, in a dreadfully sublime passage of the 
 Agamemnon of ^Eschylus; and the jolly God 
 had been already introduced upon our stage 
 in a mask by Ben Jonson: but it remained for 
 Milton to develope his form and character* 
 to give him a lineage and an empire, and 
 to make him the hero of the most exquisite 
 dramatic poem, which, perhaps, the genius 
 of man has ever produced. Among the com- 
 
 Tv 
 
 p0oy/0, H 'j 
 
 y 
 
 v 
 
 (rvfyovwv t 
 sfft 8* vpyov Sou pxori 
 
 The band of Furies, with their voices tuned 
 In dreadful harmony, shall never quit 
 These fatal walls : and now with human blood 
 Drunk and made savage, COMUS riots here, 
 Sent by his kindred Furies to destroy : 
 While they, the baleful inmates of this housey 
 With notes of horror and Tartarean din, 
 Sing the first crime of this devoted race. 
 
LIFE O'P !VTILT9i\. 101 
 
 positions of our own country it certainly 
 stands unrivalled for its affluence in poetic 
 imagery and diction; and, as an effort of the 
 creative power, it can be parallelled only by 
 the Muse of Shakspeare, by whom in this re- 
 spect it is possibly exceeded. 
 
 With Shakspeare the whole, excepting 
 some rude outlines or suggestions of the story, 
 is the immediate emanation of his own mind: 
 but Milton's erudition precluded him from 
 this extreme originality, and was perpetually 
 supplying him with thoughts, which would 
 sometimes obtain the preference from his 
 judgment and would sometimes be mistaken 
 for her own property by his invention. Ori- 
 ginal however he is; and of all the sons of 
 song inferior in this requisite of genius to 
 Shakspeare alone. Neither of these wonder- 
 ful men was so far privileged above his spe- 
 cies as to possess other means of acquir- 
 ing knowledge than through the inlets of the 
 senses, and by the subsequent operations of 
 the mind on this first mass of ideas. The 
 most exalted of human intelligences cannot 
 form one mental phantasm uncompounded 
 of this visible world. Neither Shakspeare 
 nor Milton could conceive a sixth corporeal 
 sense, or a creature absolutely distinct from 
 
10 ( 2 
 
 the inhabitants of our earth. A Caliban or 
 an Ariel, a demon or an angel are only se- 
 veral compositions and modifications of our 
 animal creation ; and heaven and hell can 
 be built with nothing more than our terres- 
 trial elements newly arranged and variously 
 combined. The distinction therefore be- 
 tween one human intelligence and another 
 must be occasioned solely by the different 
 degrees of clearness force and quickness 
 with which it perceives, retains, and com- 
 bines. On the superiority in these mental 
 faculties it would be difficult to decide be- 
 tween those extraordinary men who are the 
 immediate subjects of our remark: for if we 
 are astonished at that power which, from a 
 single spot as it were, could collect suffi- 
 cient materials for the construction of a world 
 of its own, we cannot gaze without wonder 
 at that proud magnificence of intellect which, 
 rushing like some mighty river through ex- 
 tended lakes and receiving into its bosom 
 the contributory waters of a thousand rer 
 gions, preserves its course its name and its 
 Character entire. With Milton, from what- 
 ever mine the ore may originally be derived, 
 the coin issues from his mint with his own 
 image and superscription; and passes into 
 
LIFE OF MILTON. 103 
 
 currency with a value peculiar to itself. To 
 speak accurately, the mind of Shakspeare 
 could not create; and that of Milton in- 
 vented with equal or with nearly equal power 
 and effect. If we admit in the " Tempest/' or 
 the " Midsummer's Night's Dream/' a higher 
 flight of the inventive faculty, we must al- 
 low a less interrupted stretch of it in the 
 Comus. In this poem there may be some- 
 thing which might have been corrected by 
 the revising judgment of its author: but its 
 errors, in thought or in language, are so few 
 and trivia] that they must be regarded as the 
 Inequality of the plumage, and not as the 
 depression or the unsteadiness of the wing. 
 The most splendid results of Shakspeare's 
 poetry are still pressed and separated by some 
 interposing defect: but the poetry of the 
 Comus may be contemplated as a series of 
 gerns strung on golden wire, where the 
 sparkle shoots along the line with scarcely 
 the intervention of a single opake spot. 
 
 This exquisite piece has been pronounced 
 to be undramatic : the mode, in which its 
 story is opened, has been censured as ab- 
 surd; and its speeches have been condemned 
 as toq long, too nicely balanced, and too 
 " tediously" moral for the production of stage- 
 interest. With reference to our theatre, 
 
104 LIFE OF MILTON. 
 
 though even on our stage Comas' 1 has been 
 more than tolerated, these censures may be 
 admitted as just, But Milton when he wrote 
 }ris Mask had no view to the modern scene ; 
 and, writing for one specific object and in a 
 peculiar walk of composition, he might feel 
 himself to be liberated from many of those 
 rules which adapt the regular drama to the 
 .attainment of its ends. He knew that a, Mgisk 
 was an entertainment addressed immediately 
 find solely to the imagination; that it was the 
 Appropriate organ of fancy, and, while it 
 presented pleasing and striking images to the 
 mind ? tjiat it Affected no controll over the 
 passions npr any rigid observance of poetic 
 truth. With him it was made the vehicle of 
 pure poetry carrying the most sublime mo- 
 rality in her embrace, and solicitous, not to 
 agitate, but to amuse, exalt, and refine. He 
 has observed however, with considerable fide- 
 lity, the practice of the Grecian drama- 
 lists; and, when -he unfolds tjie story of his 
 scene in a speech delivered in the solitude of 
 ft wild wpod, (and this certainly is the most 
 reprehensible circumstance in the conduct 
 pf his fable,) he is only guilty of the same 
 trespass against common sense which his 
 
 Comus was acted at Drury Lane, in March, 1738,, with 
 much applause fpr several successive nights. 
 
LIFE OF MILTON. 105 
 
 favourite Euripides has frequently commit^ 
 ted. The length and even poise of the 
 speeches in Comus are also formed on the 
 same model; and, when we recollect how 
 often the dialogue on the Athenian stage is 
 conducted through an entire scene in replies 
 and retorts consisting each of a single line, 
 we shall not be surprised at the same short 
 and equally measured conversation when it 
 occurs between Comus and the Lady, 
 
 It seems impossible for poetry to go be- 
 yond her excursions in " this wilderness of 
 sweets." She treads sometimes on the very 
 fearful and giddy edge of a precipice, and, 
 while we admire her boldness, we are doubt- 
 ful of her safety. In that exquisite passage -< 
 
 How sweetly did they float upon 
 Of silence through the empty-vaulted night, 
 At every fall smoothing the raven do\yn, 
 Of daikness till it smiled, 
 
 if our rapture would suffer us to be suffici-* 
 ently composed to consult our reason, we 
 might perhaps justly question the propriety 
 pf the length to which the poet's fancy has 
 carried him. Darkness may aptly be repre- 
 sented by the blackness of the raven ; and 
 the stillness of that darkness may be pa- 
 rallelled by an image borrowed from the ob^ 
 ject of another sense by the softness of 
 
106 LIFE O> MILTOX. 
 
 clown; but it is surely a trangression which 
 stands in need of pardon when, proceeding a 
 step further and accumulating personifica- 
 tions, we invest this raven-down with life and 
 make it to smile. b Another passage, which 
 represents the effect of the Lady's singing 
 with a different allusion, is not liable to any 
 objection, and is altogether admirable: 
 
 At last a soft and solemn-breathing sound 
 Rose, like a steam of rich distill'd perfumes, 
 And stole upon the air. 
 
 Henry Lawes the musician, who composed 
 the music for this poem and who was him- 
 self no indifferent poet, acted the part of the 
 
 b One of the least able and least specious of my public critics., 
 in a periodical publication* which, after struggling for a short time 
 in weak and doubtful existence, is now extinct, has dogmatically 
 pronounced me to be guilty in this observation of a gross mistake, 
 asserting that it is Darkness itself and not its raven-down which 
 is here personified by the poet. I am willing to receive correction 
 from any hand, however generally feeble and insufficient: but in 
 the present instance I must be pardoned by the critic if I reject 
 his correction, and adhere to my original remark. The thing 
 which is smoothed, in this passage, is evidently the thing which 
 is made to smile. If we alter the sentence, and, instead of using 
 the auxiliary preposition, employ the inflected possessive of Dark- 
 ness, which is of course grammatically the same, every doubt will 
 be removed from the question. To smooth Darkness's raven 
 down till it smiled, must surely be to make the raven down smile. 
 The critic was led to this unlucky opportunity of exhibiting his 
 sagacity by the place which the word darkness occupies in the 
 sentence. 
 
 * The Literary Journal, published by Baldwins, 
 
LIFE OF MILTON. 10? 
 
 attendant Spirit, and was designed in that 
 piece under the character of Thyrsis 
 
 Whose artful strains have oft delay'd 
 The huddling brook to hear, his madrigal. 
 
 He was retained as a domestic in the earl of 
 Bridgewater's family, where he was the mu- 
 sical instructor of the lady Alice. He was the 
 friend of Waller, and the theme of his Muse : 
 but this composer's most distinguishing ho- 
 nours are derived from his connexion with the 
 Comus, and its author. Of the former of these 
 he was the first publisher, and by the latter he 
 was made an object of particular regard, of 
 high and specific panegyric/ In his dedi- 
 cation of this first edition of Comus, to the 
 lord Brackley who had represented the elder 
 brother, Lawes speaks of the work as not 
 openly acknowledged by its author; and the 
 motto, undoubtedly prefixed to it by Milton 
 himself, 
 
 Eheu! quid volui misero mihi ! floribus Austrum 
 Perditus, 
 
 Ah! what could I intend? undone, I find 
 My flowers submitted to the withering wind: 
 
 elegantly and happily intimates the sensibU 
 lity of a young writer trembling on the edge 
 
 c Jn 1637. d See Milton's xiiith Sonnet. 
 
108 LIFE OF MILTON. 
 
 of the press, and fearful lest the tenderness 
 of his blossoms should be blighted by the 
 breath of the public. 6 
 
 The Lycidas was written, as there is reason 
 to believe, at the solicitation of the author's 
 College, to commemorate the death of Mr. 
 Edward King, one of its fellows, and a son of 
 sir John King, Knt. secretary for Ireland in 
 the reigns of Elizabeth James and Charles. 
 This young man, whose vessel f foundered, 
 as she was sailing from Chester to Ireland, 
 
 e From a letter of our author's to his friend, Alex. Gill, dated 
 Dec. 4, l6o4, we find that in the same year, in which the poet 
 finished Comus, he made that version of the II 4th Psalm into 
 Greek hexameters, which he afterwards published with his 
 other poems. It \vas thrown off, as he tells his correspondent, 
 without any thought or intention of mind, and as it were 
 with some sudden and strange impulse, before day-light in his 
 bed, " Nullo certe animi proposito, sed subito nescio quo im- 
 petu, apte lucis exortum, ad Graeci carminis heroici legem, in 
 lectulo fere concinnabam." Epis. fam. 5. 
 
 f I shall here rectify an inaccuracy in Mr. Warton's relation of 
 the Shipwreck of Mr. King. Mr. W. says, " When in calm 
 weather, not far from the English coast, the ship, a very crazy 
 vessel, a fatal and perfidious lark, struck on a rock, and sud- 
 denly sunk to the bottom with all that were on board, not one 
 escaping." [See Milton's Juven. Poems, 2d ed. p. 38.] A more 
 correct account of this disaster, given by Hogg who in l6'c)4 pub- 
 lished a Latin translation or rather paraphrase of the Lycidas, 
 informs us that several escaped in the boat from the sinking 
 vessel; but that Mr. King and some others, fatally unmoved by 
 the importunities of their associates, continued on board and 
 peiished. This melancholy event happened on the 10th of Au- 
 gust 1637. 
 
LIFE OF MtLTOST. 109 
 
 in a calm sea and not far from land, was so 
 highly esteemed by the whole University, for 
 his learning piety and talents, that his death 
 was deplored as a public loss, and Cambridge 
 invited her Muses to celebrate and lament 
 him. In the collection of poems, which was 
 published on this occasion in 1638, Milton's 
 Lycidas occupies the last and, as it was no 
 doubt intended to be, the most honourable 
 place. Every honour which could be paid 
 to its poetic excellence was inferior to its just 
 demand : but we may reasonably wonder 
 that a poem, breathing such hostility to the 
 clergy of the church of England and me^ 
 nacing their leader with the axe^ should be 
 permitted to issue from the University press. 
 The speech indeed, assigned to St. Peter 
 
 The pilot of the Galilean lake. 
 
 may properly be regarded as the most objec- 
 tionable part of the composition. The poetry 
 in these nineteen lines is not equal to what 
 precedes and what follows them ; and to make 
 an Apostle speak with exultation of the ap- 
 proaching punishment of a bishop by the 
 hand of the executioner must certainly be 
 censured as improper and indecorous. 
 
 But, whatever sentence may be passed on 
 this small portion of the Lycidas, the entire 
 
110 LIFE OF MILTON. 
 
 monody must be felt by every reader of taste 
 as an effusion of the purest and most exalted 
 poetry. We may wish perhaps that it had 
 been constructed on some other plan of 
 stanza, or with a different arrangement of its 
 rhymes; we may sometimes be tempted to 
 think its transitions too violent, and its al- 
 lusions not sufficiently obvious : but, as a 
 whole, it seizes upon our fancy with irresisti- 
 ble force, and will scarcely suffer our judg- 
 ment to discover its defects. In one place, 
 and in one only, it exhibits a magnificent, 
 though obscure image in a state rather of in- 
 jury from its association with what is little 
 and improper: 
 
 Where the great vision of the guarded mount 
 Looks towards Namancos s and Bayona's hold 
 Look homeward Angel now, and melt with ruth : 
 And O ye dolphins waft the hapless youth ! 
 
 After invoking the great vision, or the Arch 
 Angel seated on his lofty rock and throwing 
 his angel-ken over the sea 
 
 Towards Namancos and Bayona's hold, 
 
 s This Namancos has puzzled all the commentators. The 
 conjecture that it is a name, found in some old romance, for 
 Numanlia, strikes me as improbable; and I am unable to sug- 
 gest any other. From its situation, riot indeed near the coast 
 but in that line of country towards which St. Michael's Mount 
 looks, Numantia would sufficiently answer the purpose of the 
 poet. 
 
LIFE OF MILTON. Ill 
 
 to turn his countenance homeward and to 
 weep for the calamity of that country which 
 was under his own immediate guardianship, 
 it surely is a most notable anti-climax to call 
 upon the dolphins to waft the hapless youth* 
 when their services could be of no use to him, 
 and when he was so far from hapless, that he 
 was " laving his locks with nectar in the blest 
 kingdoms of joy and love." 
 
 To enumerate the beauties of this poem 
 would extend our digression beyond its just 
 length, and would not be consistent with our 
 plan. We have observed that the Comus 
 came into the world unacknowledged by its 
 author, and it is remarkable that the writer 
 of the Lycidas was intimated only by the 
 initials J. M. This great man seems to have 
 felt an awe of the public by which the herd 
 of small writers are seldom repressed 
 
 For fools rush in where angels fear to tread. 
 
 But, if he published with diffidence, he wrote 
 with boldness and with the persuasion, re- 
 sulting from the consciousness of power, of 
 literary immortality. " After I had (he tells 
 us h ) from my first years, by the ceaseless dili- 
 gence of my father, (whom God recompense!) 
 
 h Reasons of C. Govern. B. 2d. P.W..i. 118. 
 
112 LIFE OF MILTON. 
 
 been exercised in the tongues, and some 
 sciences as my age would suffer, by sundry 
 masters and teachers both at home and at 
 the schools, it was found that whether ought 
 was imposed on me by them that had the 
 overlooking, or betaken to of iny own choice, 
 in English or other tongue, prosing or vers- 
 ing, but chiefly this latter, the style by cer- 
 tain vital symptoms it had, was likely to 
 live/' In a letter, which from its date was 
 written about two months before his Lycidas> 
 he lays open to his friend Deodati the lofty 
 hopes and the daring projects of his heart. 
 
 " But you are now anxious, as I know/ 
 (the writer says) " to have your curiosity gra- 
 tified. You solicitously enquire even about 
 my thoughts. Attend then, Deodati, but let 
 me spare myself a blush by speaking in your 
 ear; and for a moment let me talk proudly 
 to you. Do you ask me what is in my 
 thought? So may God prosper me, as it is 
 nothing less than immortality* But how shall 
 I accomplish it ? My wings are sprouting, 
 and I meditate to fly: but while my Pegasus 
 yet lifts himself on very tender pinions, let 
 me be prudent and humble/' 
 
 5 For the amusement of my readers I will insert the whole letter 
 from which I have made this extract, with a translation of it by 
 my friend Mr. Wrangham. We find by this document that Milton 
 
LIFE OF MILTON. 113 
 
 We shall again have occasion to remark 
 
 had just accomplished a very rugged journey through some of the 
 most barren and unsightly tracts of history. Of all the produc- 
 tions of the pen, familiar letters give us the most insight into the 
 sanctuary of the writer's bosom. 
 
 CAROLO DEODATO. 
 
 rt Quod caeteri in literis suis plerunque faciunt amid, ut uni- 
 cam tantum salutem dicere sat habeant, tu illud jam video quid 
 sit quod to-ties impertias; ad ea enim quae tute prius, et alii 
 adhuc sola afferre possunt vota, jam nunc artem insuper tuarn, 
 vimque omnem medicam quasi cumulum accedere vis me scili- 
 cet intelligere. Jubes enim salvere sexcenties, quantum volo, 
 quantum possum, vel etiam amplius. Nae ipsum te nuper salu- 
 tis condum promum esse factum oportet, ijta totum salubritatis 
 penum dilapidas, aut ipsa proculdubio sanitas jam tua parasita 
 esse debet, sic pro rege te geris atque imperas ut dicto sit au- 
 diensj itaque gratulor tibi, et duplici proinde nomine gratias 
 tibi agam necesse est, cum amicitias turn artis eximiae. Literas 
 quidem tuas, quoniam ita convenerat, diu expectabam; verum 
 acceptis neque dum ullis, si quid mihi credis, non idcirco vete- 
 rem meam erga te benevolent iam tantillum refrigescere sum 
 passus j immo vero qua tarditatis excusatione usus literarum 
 initio es, ipsam illam te allaturum esse jam animo praesenseram, 
 idque recte nostroeque necessitudini convenienter. Non enim 
 in epistolarum ac salutationum momentis veram verti amicitiam 
 volo, quse omnia ficta esse possunt, sed altis animi radicibus 
 niti utrinque et sustinere se; coeptamque sinceris et sanctis 
 rationibus, etiamsi mutua cessarent officia, per omnem tamen 
 vitam suspicione et culpa vacare: ad quam fovendam noil tarn 
 script o sit opus, quam viva invicem virtutum recordatione. Nee 
 continue, ut tu non scripseris, non erit quo illud suppleri offi- 
 cium possit, scribit vicem tuam apud me tua probitas, verasque 
 literas intimis sensibus meis exarat, scribit morum simplicitas, 
 et recti amor^ scribit ingenium etiam tuurn, haudquaquam 
 quotidianum, et majorem in modum te rnihi commendat* 
 Quare noli mihi, arceni illam medicinae tyrannicam nactus, 
 
 i 
 
114 LIFE OF MILTON. 
 
 these aspirings of his mind to the high pro- 
 
 terrores istos ostentare, ac si salutes tuas sexcentas velles, sul> 
 ducta minutirn ratiuncula, ad unum omnes a me reposcere, si 
 forte ego, (quod ne siverit unquam Dens,) amicitiae desertor 
 fierenij atque amove terribile illud ezB-irg^ier^a quod cervici- 
 bus nostris videris imposuisse, ut sine tha bona venia ne liceat 
 segrotare. Ego enim, ne nimis minitere, tui similes impossibile 
 est quin amem'; nam de caetero quidem quid de me statuerit 
 Dens nescio, illud certe, oeivov poi s'goora, sntip fju aAAw, f& 
 Ka\8 kvsg TO,%. Nee tantp Ceres labore, ut in fabulis est, Libe- 
 ram fertur quaesivisse filiam, quanto ego hanc i's xaAs i^eav, 
 veluti pulcherrimam quandam imaginem, per omnes rerum 
 formas et facies : (tfoAAa/ yap poptpofi Touv AoupAview) dies noc- 
 tesque indagare soleo, et quasi certis quibusdam vestigiis du- 
 centem sector. Unde fit, ut qui, spretis quae vulgus prava re- 
 rum sestimatione opinatur, id sen tire et loqui et esse audetj 
 quod summa per omne aevum sapientia optimum esse docuit, 
 illi me protinus, sicubi reperiam, necessitate quadam adjun- 
 gam. Quod si ego, sive natura sive meo fato, ita sum compara- 
 tus, ut nulla contentione et laboribus meis ad tale decus et fas- 
 tigium laudis ipse valeam emergerej tamen quo minus qui earn 
 gloriam assecuti sunt, aut eo feliciter aspirant, illos semper 
 colam et suspiciam nee dii puto nee homines prohibuerint. 
 <r Caeterum jam curiositati tuae vis esse satisfactum scio. Multa 
 solicite quaeris etiam quid cogitem. Audi, Theodote, verum 
 in aurem ne rubeam, et sinito paulisper apud te grandia lo- 
 quar: quid cogitem quaeris? ita me bonus Deus, immortali- 
 tatem. Quid agam vero? ifispofyvoa, et volare meditor : sed 
 tenellis admodum adhuc pennis evehit se noster Pegasus; hu- 
 mile sapiamus." Dicam jam mine serio quid cogitem, in hospi- 
 tium juridicorum aliquod immigrare, sicubi amoena et umbrosa 
 ambulatio est, quod et inter aliquot sodales, commodior illic 
 habitatio, si domi manere, et ^uojnjpjoj/ s'j^csifEa'Ts^v quocunque 
 libitum erit excurrere; ubi nunc sum, ut nosti, obscure et an- 
 guste sum. De studiis etiam nostris fies certior. Graecorum res 
 continuata lectione deduximus usquequo illi Graeci esse sunt 
 ^esiti: Italorum in obscura re diu versati sumus, sub Longobar^. 
 
LIFE OF MILTON. 115 
 
 spect of poetic immortality, till the baleful 
 
 dis et Francis et Germanis, ad illud tempus quo illis ab Ro- 
 dolpho Germaniae rege concessa libertas est: exinde quid quae- 
 que civitas SUD marte gesserit, separatim legere praestabit. Tu 
 vero quid? quousque rebus domesticis films familias imminebis 
 urbanarum sodalitatum oblitus? quod, nisi bellum hoc nover- 
 cale vel Dacico vel Sarmatico infestius sit, debebis profecto 
 maturare, ut ad nos saltern in hyberna concedas. Interim, quod 
 sine tua molestia fiat, Justinianum mihi Venetorum historicum 
 rogo mittas, ego mea fide aut in adventum tuum probe asser- 
 vatum curaboj aut, si mavis, baud ita multo post ad te remis- 
 sum. Vale." 
 
 Londini, Sep. 23, 1637. 
 
 TO CHARLES DEODATI. 
 
 " Other friends in their letters generally reckon it sufficient 
 to wish only a single health to their correspondents; I can as- 
 sign a reason, however, why you so often repeat the salutation. 
 For in addition to your old wishes, which are all that others are 
 still able to offer, yon would have me now consider your whole 
 art and energy of medicine as engaged: since you bid me hail 
 indefinitely, to the height of my desires, of my powers, nay, 
 beyond. You must surely have become of late the very house- 
 steward of Health, you so lavishly dispense her whole stores 5 or 
 Health herself is without doubt your obsequious attendant, you 
 so imperiously like a king enjoin her obedience. Accept there- 
 fore my congratulations, and allow me to return you my double 
 thanks, on account both of your friendship and your profound 
 skill. I had long indeed, in consequence of your arrangement, 
 been expecting a letter from you ; but, trust me, so far was I from 
 feeling the slightest diminution of kindness towards you on 
 account of its non-arrival, that I had even anticipated the very 
 excuse for its delay which you yourself allege in the beginning 
 of it : and this too justly, and without any derogation from 
 our intimacy. For true friendship should not depend upon the 
 balancings of letters and salutations, which may be all hypocri- 
 tical 3 but should cling and sustain itself by the deep roots of 
 the soul, and, originating in pure and hallowed principles, should 
 through the whole of life, even without the intervention of 
 
116 LIFE OF MILTON. 
 
 fury of politics diverted his fancy from where 
 she 
 
 Roll'd o'er Elysian flowers her amber stream, 
 
 into a channel polluted with weeds and hor- 
 rid with precipices. 
 
 reciprocal civilities, avoid both suspicion and offence, cherished 
 not so much by letters as by the lively remembrance of mutual 
 virtues. Nor, should you happen to omit writing, would you 
 be without a substitute in that office. Your integrity writes to 
 me in your stead and inscribes its deep characters upon my in- 
 most senses. Your simplicity, your honour, and your genius 
 (genius of no common stamp) are my correspondents, and give 
 me a still stronger impression in your favour. Do not then 
 from your lordly eminence of medicine, hold out to me the 
 threat of reclaiming, with rigid minuteness of calculation, your 
 indefinitely-multiplied salutations, in the event (which God 
 avert!) of my proving treacherous to friendship; but take off 
 that dread injunction, which you seem to have laid upon me, 
 of not daring to be sick without your leave. For, without your 
 denunciations, I cannot help loving such as resemble you; since, 
 whatever God may have determined concerning me in other 
 respects, he has certainly implanted in me, if in any one, a ve- 
 hement love of the TO xzXw : nor is Ceres herself represented 
 in fable to have sought her daughter Proserpine with so much 
 zeal, as I daily and nightly pursue and trace the steps of this 
 fair idea, this enchanting image through every form and face 
 of things " for various are the shapes which people heaven." 
 Hence he who, in contempt of the depraved estimates of po- 
 pular opinion, dares to think and speak and be what genuine 
 wisdom has universally pronounced best, by a kind of necessity 
 becomes instantly, wherever I find him, an object of my ardent 
 attachment. I myself may from nature or through destiny be 
 so circumstanced as to be incapable, by any struggles or exer- 
 tions of my own, of attaining such an honourable elevation: but 
 neither gods, 1 trust, nor men, will forbid my looking up to 
 such as have attained, or are successfully labouring to attain it, 
 with reverence and veneration, 
 
LIFE OF MILTON. 11? 
 
 L' Allegro and II Penseroso made their 
 first public appearance in the edition of our 
 author's poems which was published by him- 
 self in 1645; and we have no positive testi- 
 mony to determine the precise time of their 
 
 <( Your curiosity will now, I know, expect some satisfaction. 
 Among other subjects of anxious inquiry, you ask me, upon 
 what I am thinking. Hear me, my heaven-bestowed friend, 
 but in a whisper to spare my blushes; and permit me for a 
 moment to utter great things. Do you ask me, " Upon what I 
 am thinking?" So help me heaven, upon immortality. But 
 what am I doing? I am fledging myself, and meditate a flight. 
 My Pegasus however as yet soars only on slender pinions: let 
 me moderate my thoughts. I will now tell you what is my 
 serious project : to remove into some inn of court, where I 
 may find pleasant and shady walks; because it is both more 
 convenient to reside among a few companions, if I choose to 
 stay at homej and I shall have a better point of setting off 
 whenever I wish to go abroad. My present abode, you know, 
 is both gloomy and confined. You shall also be informed of 
 my studies. I have read straightforward the history of the 
 Greeks, till they lost their title to the name; and have lingered 
 in the dark ages of Italy, among the Lombards the Franks and 
 the Germans, down to the period in which they obtained liberty 
 from the Emperor Rodolph. From that epoch it will be better 
 to read separately the exertions of each distinct state, 
 
 " And what are you doing? How long will you allow your 
 domestic engagements, as a son, to interfere with your city- 
 friendships? Surely, if this stepmother's warfare be not more 
 severe than that of Dacia or Sarmatia, you will despatch it 
 speedily, and join us in winter-quarters. In the mean while I 
 shall be obliged to you, if you can without inconvenience lend 
 me Giustiniani's History of Venice ; and I will engage either 
 to take the utmost care of it till your arrival, or (if you chuse) 
 in a very short time to return it to you. Farewell." 
 London, Sept. 23, 1637. 
 
118 LITE OF MILTON. 
 
 production. There is reason however to 
 suppose that they were written in the inter- 
 val between the composition of Comus and 
 that of Lycidas. The opening lines of the 
 latter poem seem to refer to some work of a 
 more recent date than the Mask, since the 
 representation of which three years had now 
 elapsed; and we cannot, with the least pre- 
 tence of probability, assign their origin to 
 any other portion of their author's life than 
 to that which w r as passed at Horton. The 
 evidence of their ripened excellence would 
 not allow us to ascribe them to his more 
 youthful years, even if the accurate and cir- 
 cumstantial account, which has been trans- 
 mitted to us, of the produce of those years 
 had left us any doubt upon the subject. 
 With his compositions during his residence 
 in Italy we are so particularly acquainted as 
 not to be permitted to hesitate when we ex- 
 clude from their number the objects of our re- 
 ference; and the character also of these pieces 
 establishes them k to be properly and strictly 
 English. Their lineaments and their tints 
 are so specific, and so peculiarly genuine as 
 to prove them to be drawn from the vivid na- 
 ture before the poet's eye, and not from the 
 
 k See a note in the Appendix on a letter of Sir William Jones's 
 referring to the time and the place when and where these poems 
 were composed. 
 
LIFE OF MILTON. 119 
 
 dimmer reflection of his mind. The land- 
 scape indeed, with all its shades, is of his 
 own country, and when he speaks of " towers 
 and battlements" 
 
 Bosom'd high in tufted trees, 
 Where perhaps some beauty lies 
 The Cynosure of neighboring eyes, 
 
 we may suppose that his sight was directed 
 immediately to the woods and the mansion 
 of Harefield. 
 
 These poems, then, must be received as 
 the indisputable natives of our island ; and 
 they cannot be considered as born after 
 their parent's return from the continent, 
 when his talents were withdrawn from the 
 Muses ; and when, immersed in the capital 
 and in polemics, his thought could not easily 
 escape to play and to cull flowers among 
 the scenery of the country. I/Allegro and 
 11 Penseroso therefore were certainly writ- 
 ten at Horton, and probably at no long pe- 
 riod before the Lycidas, which was the last 
 of our author's works while he resided with 
 his father. They were unquestionably com- 
 posed in the happiest humour of the poet's 
 mind, when his fancy was all sunshine and 
 
 no cloud, or, to obstruct her view, 
 
 Star interposed. . 
 
 We may contemplate them not as the ef- 
 fects or qualities, (if the allusion may be par- 
 
120 LIFE OF MILTON. 
 
 doned,) but as the very substance of poetry, 
 as its " hidden soul untied," and brought for- 
 ward to our sight. 
 
 It is not easy to adjust the precedency 
 between these victorious efforts of the de- 
 scriptive Muse. No passage in II Penseroso 
 is perhaps equally happy with the follow- 
 ing in I/Allegro: 
 
 And ever against eating cares 
 
 Lap me in soft Lydian airs, 
 
 Married to immortal verse, 
 
 Such as the meeting soul may pierce 
 
 In notes with many a winding bout 
 
 Of linked sweetness long drawn out, 
 
 With wanton heed and giddy cunning, 
 
 The melting voice through mazes running, 
 
 Untwisting all the chains that tie 
 
 The hidden soul of harmony. 
 
 But if my judgment were to decide, I should 
 award the palm, though with some hesita- 
 tion, to II Penseroso. The portrait of con- 
 templation; the address to Philomel; the 
 image of the moon, wandering through hea- 
 ven's pathless way; the slow swinging of the 
 curfeu over some wide-water'd shore; the 
 flaming of the night-lamp in some lonely 
 tower; the unsphering of the spirit of Plato 
 to disclose the residence of the unbodied 
 soul; the arched walks of twilight groves; 
 the mysterious dream by the murmuring 
 waters; the sweet music of the friendly spirit 
 
LIFE OF MILTON. 121 
 
 of the wood; the l pale and studious cloister; 
 the religious light thrown through the storied 
 windows ; the pealing organ, and finally the 
 peaceful hermitage form together such a 
 mass of poetic imagery as was never before 
 crowded into an equal space: the impression 
 made by it on the imagination is to be felt, 
 and not explained. 
 
 Although these poems obtained some 
 early notice, the number of their admirers 
 was for a long time small. Even from the 
 wits of our Augustan age, as the age of Ad- 
 dison and Pope has sometimes been called, 
 their share of notice was inconsiderable; and 
 it is in only what may be regarded as the 
 present generation, that they have acquired 
 any large proportion of their just praise. 
 Their reputation seems to be still increasing; 
 
 1 " Perhaps," says Mr. Warton on this line, " To walk the 
 studious cloisters pale," 
 
 The studious cloister's pale." 
 
 If this unlucky " perhaps" were to be regarded, the beauty of 
 the line would be injured, and its propriety annihilated. Pale, 
 as an epithet to cloister, is most happily poetic, and holds a 
 large and animated picture to the imagination. It shows to us 
 the ghostly light of the place, and it shows to us also the sickly 
 cheek of timorous superstition, the wan and faded counte- 
 nance of studious and contemplative melancholy. The cloister's 
 pale, or fence, is tautological and weak; and to walk a pale, 
 which, if it mean any thing, must mean to walk upon a pale, is 
 a feat of rather difficult accomplishment, 
 
122 LIFE OF MILTON. 
 
 and we may venture to predict that it will 
 yet increase, till some of those great vicissi- 
 tudes, to which all that is human is perpe- 
 tually exposed and which all that is human 
 must eventually experience, shall blot out our 
 name and our language, and bury us in bar- 
 barism. But even amid the ruins of Britain, 
 Milton will survive: Europe will preserve 
 one portion of him; and his native strains 
 will be cherished in the expanding bosom of 
 the great queen of the Atlantic, when his 
 own London may present the spectacle of 
 Thebes, and his Thames roll a silent and 
 solitary stream through heaps of blended 
 desolation. 111 
 
 01 I am reminded on this occasion of a beautiful passage in 
 the " Essay on the dramatic character of Sir John Falstaff," 
 written by the late Maurice Morgann, Esq. " Yet whatever 
 may be the neglect of some, or the censure of others, there are 
 those who firmly believe that this wild and uncultivated * Bar- 
 barian has not obtained one half of his fame."' When the 
 hand of time shall have brushed off his present editors and 
 commentators, and when the very name of Voltaire, and even 
 the memory of the language in which he has written, shall be 
 no more, the Apalachian mountains the banks of the Ohio 
 and the plains of Sciola shall resound with the accents of this 
 barbarian. In his native tongue he shall roll the genuine pas- 
 sions of nature: nor shall the griefs of Lear be alleviated, or the 
 charms and wit of Rosalind be abated by time," p. 64. 
 
 This Essay forms a more honourable monument to the me- 
 mory of Shakspeare than any which has been reared to him by 
 the united labours of his commentators. The portrait, of 
 
 * Shakspeare, so called by Voltaire. 
 
LIFE OF MILTON. 123 
 
 A few months before the composition of 
 
 which I have exhibited only a part, is drawn with so just so 
 discriminating and so vivid a pencil as to be unequalled, un- 
 less it be by the celebrated delineation of the same great dra- 
 matist by the hand of Dryden. 
 
 With the name of Maurice Morgann, who has fondled my 
 infancy in his arms, who was the friend of my youth, who ex- 
 panded the liberality of my opening heart, and first taught me 
 to think and to judge, with this interesting name so many 
 sadly-pleasing recollections are associated that I cannot dismiss 
 it without reluctance. He was my friend: but 'he was the 
 friend also of his species. The embrace of his mind was am- 
 ple j that of his benevolence was unbounded. With great rec- 
 titude of understanding, he possessed a fancy that was always 
 creative and playful. On every subject, for on every subject 
 he thought acutely and deeply, his ideas were original and 
 striking. Even when he was in error he continued to be specious 
 and to please : and he never failed of your applause, though he 
 might sometimes of your assent. When your judgment coyly 
 held back, your imagination yielded to his seductive addresses ; 
 and you wished him to be right when you were forced to pro- 
 nounce that he was wrong. This is spoken only of those webs 
 which his fancy perpetually spun and dipped in the rain-bow : 
 his heart was always in the right. With a mind of too fine a 
 texture for business, too theoretical and abstract to be executive, 
 he discharged with honour the office of under secretary of state 
 when the late marquis * of Lansdown was for the first time 
 in power j and he was subsequently sent by that nobleman 
 across the Atlantic as the intended legislator of Canada. His 
 public and his private life were impelled by the same principles 
 to the same object j by the love of liberty and virtue to the 
 
 * This able and, to decide from the consistency of his public 
 conduct, this upright statesman died on the /th of May 1805, 
 and bequeathed his whig principles and virtues to his second son, 
 Lord Henry Petty, who lately filled the office of Chancellor of the 
 Exchequer. / 
 
124 LIFE OF MILTON. 
 
 his Lycidas, our author's domestic happiness 
 
 happiness of man. If his solicitous and enlightened represen- 
 tations had experienced attention, the temporary and the abid- 
 ing evils of the American contest would not have existed; and 
 the mother and her offspring would still have been supported 
 and supporting with their mutual embrace. From a long in- 
 tercourse with the world he acquired no suspicion } no narrow- 
 ness, no hardness, no moroseness. With the simplicity and 
 candour, he retained to the last the cheerfulness and the sensi- 
 bility of childhood. The tale of distress, which he never staid 
 to investigate, passed immediately through his open ear into 
 his responsive heart j and his fortune, small as his disinterest- 
 edness had suffered it to remain, was instantly communicated 
 to relieve. His humanity comprehended the whole animated 
 creation 3 and nothing could break the tenor of his temper but 
 the spectacle of oppression or of cruelty. His failings (and 
 the most favoured of our poor species are not without failings) 
 were few, and untinctured with malignity. High as he was 
 placed by nature, he was not above the littleness of vanity j and 
 kindlily as were the elements blended in him, his manner would 
 sometimes betray that contempt of others, which the wisest are 
 perhaps the least prone to entertain, and which the best are the 
 most studious to conceal. Though he courted praise, and was 
 not nice respecting the hand which tendered it or the form in 
 which it came, yet has he refused it in the most honourable 
 shape, and when offered to him by the public. He has been 
 importuned in vain to give a second edition of his Essay on 
 Falstaff ; and his repeated injunctions have impelled his execu 
 trix to an indiscriminate destruction of his papers, some of 
 which, in the walks of politics metaphysics and criticism, 
 would have planted a permanent laurel on his grave. 
 
 Such were his frailties and inconsistencies, the objects only 
 of a doubtful smile: but his virtues and his talents made him 
 the delight of the social, the instruction or the comfort of the 
 solitary hour. 
 
 Though he had been accustomed to contemplate the awful 
 crisis of death with more terror than belonged to his innocent 
 
LIFE OF MILTON. 125 
 
 had received a shock by the death" of his 
 mother; and, with the concurrence of his fa- 
 ther, he resolved at this time on an excursion 
 to the continent, with a view more particu- 
 larly to the classic region of Italy. He was 
 now in his thirtieth year: his large mind 
 was amply stored with the spoils of universal 
 knowledge; and, from a wider conversation 
 with the living world, his character now de- 
 manded its last accomplishment and polish 
 that fine softening, as it were, into life which 
 makes the sculpture breathe, and places it 
 among the wonders of the world. On the 
 intimation of his design, he received a letter 
 from the celebrated Sir Henry Wotton, who 
 
 life or to his generally intrepid breast, he met the consumma- 
 tion without alarm, and expired with as much serenity as he 
 had lived. This event happened at his house in Knightsbridge, 
 in the seventy-seventh year of his age, on the 28th of March, 
 1802. 
 
 Xai/>e! Vale! 
 
 I shall never cense to think with a sigh of the grave in which 
 I saw your body composed, till my own shall require the same 
 pious covering of dust, and shall solicit, with far inferior claims 
 yet haply not altogether in vain, for the same fond charity of a 
 tear. C. S. 
 
 n On the 3d of April, 1037, as is recorded on her monument 
 in Horton church. 
 
 Abcuntem vir clarissimus, Henricus Woottonus, qui ad Ve- 
 netos orator Jacobi regis diu fuerat, et votis et praeceptis, eunti 
 peregre sane utilissimis eleganti epistola praescriptis, me amicis- 
 
 sime prosequutus est. Def. Sec. P.W. v. 231. Wotton was 
 
 a scholar and a poet, as well as a friend of poets. He wrote 
 
126 LIFE OF MILTON. 
 
 had resided at Venice as ambassador from 
 James the first and was now provost of Eton. 
 This letter shall be inserted as evincing the 
 reputation and consequence of Milton, while 
 it impresses us with a favourable idea of the 
 taste and the friendliness of its writer. 
 
 The College, April 18th, l63S. 
 
 " It was a special favour, when 
 you lately bestowed upon me here the first 
 taste of your acquaintance, though no longer 
 than to make me know, that I wanted more 
 time to value it, and to enjoy it rightly. And 
 in truth, if I could then have imagined your 
 farther stay in these parts, which I under- 
 stood afterward by Mr. H. I- would have 
 been bold, in our vulgar phrase, to mend my 
 draught, for you left me with an extreme 
 thirst; and to have begged your conversa- 
 tion again, jointly with your said learned 
 friend, at a poor meal or two, that we might 
 have bandied together some good authors of 
 
 a tragedy called Tancredo, of which I know nothing but the 
 name; and a few odes, which, as Mr. Warton informs me, have 
 the merit* 5 of some elegance. He was the friend of Donne 
 and of Cowley. " Our common friend, Mr. R." in this letter, 
 is probably Rouse the Bod. Librarian, to whom Milton has ad- 
 dressed a Latin ode: and " the late Mr. R's poems," Mr. War- 
 ton determines to be the poems of Thomas Randolph, M. A,. 
 Fellow of Trin. Coll. Cambridge, who died March 17, 1634. 
 
LIFE OF MILTON. 127 
 
 the ancient time, among which I observed 
 you to have been familiar. 
 
 " Since your going, you have charged me 
 with new obligations, both for a very kind 
 letter from you, dated the sixth of this month, 
 and for a dainty piece of entertainment that 
 came therewith; wherein I should much com- 
 mend the tragical part, if the lyrical did not 
 ravish with a certain Doric delicacy in your 
 songs and odes, wherein I must plainly con- 
 fess to have seen yet nothing parallel in our 
 language, ipsa mollities. But I must not omit 
 to tell you, that I now only owe you thanks 
 for intimating unto me, how modestly so- 
 ever, the true artificer. For the work itself 
 1 had viewed some good while before with 
 singular delight, having received it from our 
 common friend Mr. R. in the very close of 
 the late Il/s poems printed at Oxford ; where- 
 unto it is added, as I now suppose, that the 
 accessory might help out the principal, ac- 
 cording to the art of stationers, and leave the 
 reader con la bocca dolce. 
 
 " Now, sir, concerning your travels, where- 
 in I may challenge a little more privilege of 
 discourse with you, I suppose you will not 
 blanch Paris in your way. Therefore I have 
 been bold to trouble you with a few lines to 
 
128 LIFE OF MILTON. 
 
 Mr. M. B. p whom you shall easily find attend- 
 ing the young lord S. as his governor; and you 
 may surely receive from him good directions 
 for shaping of your farther journey into Italy, 
 where he did reside by my choice some time for 
 jhe king, after mine own recess from Venice. 
 
 " I should think, that your best line will 
 be through the whole length of France to 
 Marseilles, and thence by sea to Genoa, 
 whence the passage into Tuscany is as diur- 
 nal as a Gravesend barge. I hasten, as you 
 do, to Florence or Sienna, the rather to tell 
 you a short story, from the interest you have 
 given me in your safety. 
 
 " At Sienna I was tabled in the house of 
 one Alberto Scipioni, an old Roman cour- 
 tier in dangerous times, having been steward 
 to the Duca di Pagliano, who with all his fa- 
 mily was strangled, save this only man, that 
 escaped by foresight of the tempest. With 
 
 P I suspect that these initials should be, W. B. and that they 
 refer to Mr. William Bedell, who was chaplain to Sir H. Wotton 
 during his embassy to Venice. Bedell was one of the most able 
 and learned divines of the seventeenth century. He resided eight 
 years at Venice, where he was honoured with the friendship of 
 Father Paul, (or Peter Sarpi,) the celebrated historian of the 
 Council of Trent. On his return to England, Bedell was raised 
 in succession to the provostship of Trin. Coll. Dublin, and the 
 bishopric -of Kilmore. As he was a man of a liberal mind, and an 
 independent spirit, we may justly wonder that his merits could 
 elevate him to this eminence in the church. 
 
LIFE OF MILTON. 
 
 him I had often much chat of those affairs; 
 into which he took pleasure to look back 
 from his native harbour; and at my depar- 
 ture towards Rome, which had been the cen- 
 tre of his experience, I had won confidence 
 enough to beg his advice how I might carry 
 myself securely there, without offence of 
 others or of mine own conscience. 6 Signor 
 Amico mio,' says he, ' i pensieri stretti, et il 
 viso sciolto;' that is, c your thoughts close 
 and your countenance loose/ will go safely 
 over the whole world. Of which Delphian 
 oracle (for so I have found it) your judgment 
 doth need no commentary ; and therefore, 
 sir, I will commit you with it to the best of 
 all securities, God's dear love, remaining 
 
 " Your friend, as much at command 
 as any of longer date, 
 
 " H.WOTTON." 
 
 " P. S. Sir, I have expressly sent this by 
 my foot-boy to prevent your departure with- 
 out some acknowledgment from me of the 
 receipt of your obliging letter, having my- 
 self through some business, I know not how, 
 neglected the ordinary conveyance. In any 
 part where I shall understand you fixed, I 
 shall be glad and diligent to entertain you 
 
 K 
 
130 1IFE OF MILTOK. 
 
 with home-novelties, even for some fomen- 
 tation of our friendship, too soon interrupted 
 in the cradle." 
 
 Not long after the receipt of this letter 
 he began his journey; and, accompanied only 
 by a servant who attended him through the 
 whole of his travels, proceeded immediately 
 to Paris; where he was received with distinc- 
 tion by Lord Scudamore, p the ambassador 
 from England. By this nobleman he was 
 introduced, with much honourable attention., 
 to the famous Grotius, whom he had ex- 
 pressed a particular desire to see, and who 
 then resided in the capital of France as the 
 minister of Christina, the eccentric queen of 
 Sweden, Were we able to ascertain with 
 precision all the circumstances of this inter- 
 view between two extraordinary men, emi- 
 nently raised above the level of their species 
 by their talents and their attainments, we 
 should probably acquire nothing from our 
 knowledge to excite our wonder, or, if our 
 expectations were high, to save us from dis- 
 appointment. In the formality and coldness 
 
 P Nobilissimus vir, Thomas Scudanaorus, Parisiis humanis- 
 ime accepitj meq; Hugoni Grotio viro eruditissimo, quern in- 
 visere cnpiebain, suo nomine et suorum uno atq; alterq dedti- 
 cente, commendavit. Def. Sec. P. W. r. 231. 
 
LIFE OF MILTON. 131 
 
 of a first meeting, and especially where one 
 party would be restrained by the conscious- 
 ness of having much to lose and the other 
 by the felt impropriety of pressing upon esta- 
 blished rank and reputation, no great dis- 
 play of erudition or brilliant exchanges of 
 fancy were likely to take place. Compli- 
 ments requited with civilities ; some inqui- 
 ries respecting the traveller's plans, and some 
 advice on the subject of their execution con- 
 stituted perhaps the whole of the conference 
 between these two memorable men. 
 
 After the delay only of a few days at Pa- 
 ris, our traveller renewed his progress and, 
 
 " fired with ideas of fair Italy," 
 
 pursued the direct road to Nice; where a ves- 
 sel, readily procured by the letters which he 
 brought from Lord Scudamore to the mer- 
 chants, received and landed him at Genoa. 
 From this city he passed immediately through 
 Leghorn and Pisa to Florence, and on the 
 banks of the Arno, rendered famous by the 
 purity of the Tuscan language which was 
 spoken on them and by the learning and ta- 
 lents that frequented them, he made what 
 may be considered as his first pause. 
 
 Here he resided for two months; and his 
 conversation and manners soon introduced 
 
132 LIFE OF MILTON. 
 
 him into the high and literary circle, where 
 he speedily made himself the object of very 
 general admiration. He obtained admission 
 into those private academics, which had been 
 instituted under the genial patronage of the 
 Medici for the advancement of literature 
 and for the cementing of friendships among 
 its votaries. In these assemblies, in which 
 " it was the custom/" 1 as he tells us, " that 
 every one should give some proof of his wit 
 and reading," many of his productions, either 
 those of his younger years or " those/ which 
 he had shifted in scarcity of books and con- 
 veniencies to patch up among them/' were 
 received with much applause, " and with 
 written encomiums, which the Italian is not 
 forward to bestow on men of this side the 
 Alps/' 
 
 It was at this time that Carlo Dati, a no- 
 bleman of Florence, and Antonio Francini, 
 of a rank only one step lower, both men of 
 talents and literary renown, presented our 
 traveller with an offering of their respect, 
 one in an Italian ode of considerable merit, 
 predicting his future greatness, and the olher 
 in a Latin address, in which admiration is 
 expressed in terms of extreme and almost ex- 
 travagant panegyric. 
 
 i The Reason of Church Gov. P. W. i. Up. r Ibid. 
 

 LIFE OF MILTON. 133 
 
 Beside the two whom we have now men- 
 tioned, the English bard could number on 
 
 ' O 
 
 the list of his friends, conciliated by his learn- 
 ing talents and manners, the respectable 
 literary names of Gaddi, Frescobaldi, Col- 
 tellino, Buonmattei, Clemcntillo, and Mala- 
 testi. 3 The applause and respect which he 
 obtained seems to have been unlimited; and 
 the transalpine scholars appear to have been 
 lost in surprise at the spectacle, presented to 
 them, of a native of Britain, a country just 
 emerging, as they imagined, from barbarism, 
 who to an acquaintance, not superficial, with 
 all the sciences united a profound knowledge 
 of classic and Italian letters; whose mind 
 was at once sublime and deep, accurate and 
 comprehensive, powerful and acute; patient 
 to follow judgment in the gradual investiga- 
 tion of philosophical truth, yet delighted to 
 fly with the more aerial offspring of the brain 
 on the high and expatiating wing of imagi- 
 nation. Of all his rare accomplishments and 
 talents however, none perhaps would more 
 forcibly strike the attention and win the re- 
 gard of the Italians than his absolute com- 
 
 s A work called " La Tina," or the " Wine-Press," by An- 
 tonio Malatesti, and dedicated to Mill on while at Florence, was 
 found on a bookstall and purchased by Mr. Brand. He gave it to 
 Mr. Hollis, and Mr. Hollis sent it, with Milton's works and his 
 life by Toland, in 1758 to the Academy della Crusca. 
 
134 LITE OF MILTOtf. 
 
 mand of their language and the affection 
 which he discovered for it. So perfect was 
 his knowledge of it that he was frequently 
 consulted respecting its niceties by the Aca- 
 demy della Crusca, instituted expressly for 
 its preservation and improvement. So strong- 
 was his attachment to Italian literature that, 
 in a letter to Buonmattei, in which he offers 
 some advice to that author then on the point 
 of publishing an Italian grammar, he declares 
 that " * neither Athens herself with her lucid 
 Ilissus, nor ancient Rome with the banks of 
 her Tiber could so entirely detain him, as to 
 prevent him from visiting with fondness the 
 vale of the Arno and the hills of Fesole." 
 
 During this visit to Florence, he saw and 
 conversed with the great Galileo, that me- 
 morable victim of priestly ignorance and su- 
 perstition. For his philosophical opinions, 
 which were supposed to contradict the asser- 
 tions of the Holy Scriptures on the subject of 
 the earth's figure and motion, this illustrious 
 man had been imprisoned for five months by 
 the Inquisition; and was now resident near 
 Florence in a state of aggravated infirmity 
 
 * Nee me tarn ipsas Athenas Atticas, cum illo suo pellucido 
 Hisso, nee ilia vetus Roma, sua Tiberis ripa, retinere valuerunt, 
 quin soepe Arnum vestrum, et Faesulanos illos colles invisere 
 amem. Epis. Fam. P. W. vi. 118. 
 
LIFE OF MILTON. 135 
 
 from age, sickness, and mental u distress. 
 Rolli, the Italian biographer of Milton, sup- 
 poses that from his intercourse with the 
 Tuscan astronomer the English poet gained 
 those ideas, approaching to the Newtonian, 
 respecting our planetary system which he 
 has discovered in the Paradise Lost. If this 
 supposition be just, it must be the subject of 
 our surprise as it is of our regret that a sys- 
 tem which, with its obvious simplicity, would 
 enforce the conviction of any philosophic 
 and acute mind even without the demonstra- 
 tion of Newton's mathematics, should not 
 have obtained our poet's entire assent; and 
 thus have saved him from that awkward halt- 
 ing between two opinions which incidentally 
 disfigures a few pages of his immortal epic. 
 
 On his leaving Florence, where he staid, 
 as we have observed, two months, our tra- 
 veller proceeded through Sienna to Rome. 
 In this city of old and of modern renown, 
 the mistress of the world at one time by her 
 arms and laws, and of Europe at another 
 by her policy and the engine of perverted 
 religion, he passed two months in the con- 
 
 u " There it was (in Italy) that I found and visited the fa- 
 mous Galileo, grown old, a prisoner to the Inquisition, for think- 
 ing in astronomy otherwise than the Franciscan and Dominican 
 licensers thought." A Speech for Unlicensed Printing. P. W. 
 1. 313. 
 
136 LIFE OF MILTON. 
 
 templation of the wonders of her ancient and 
 modern art, and in the society made more 
 interesting by the friendship of her scholars 
 and her great men. The kindness of Holste- 
 nius, the learned keeper of the Vatican library, 
 not only opened to him the curiosities of 
 that grand repository of literature, but intro- 
 duced him to the attentions of the Cardinal 
 Barberini; x who at that time possessed the 
 whole delegated sovereignty of Rome under 
 his uncle, Urban VIII. At a great musical 
 entertainment, which this opulent Cardinal 
 gave with a magnificence truly Roman, he 
 looked for our traveller among the crowd at 
 the door, and brought him, almost by the 
 hand, into the assembly/ These benefits and 
 favours were not forgotten by him; and the 
 letter, which he addressed to Holstenius from 
 Florence, constitutes their acknowledgment 
 and requital. 
 
 x Turn nee aliter crediderim, quam quae tu * de me verba fe- 
 ceris ad praestantissimum Cardin. Franc. Barberinum, iis factum 
 esse, nt cum ille pancis post diebus aKpoapx illud Musicum 
 magnificentia vere Romana publice exhiberet, ipse me tanta in 
 turba quaesitum ad fores expectans, et pene manu prehensum 
 persane honorifice intro admiserit. Epist. Fam. P. W. vi. 120. 
 
 y Mr. Todd, the industrious editor of Milton, has mentioned, 
 on the authority of a MS. of Dr. Bargrave, that at this time every 
 foreign nation had a particular guardian assigned to it at Rome in 
 the person of one of the Cardinals; and that Barberini was the ap- 
 pointed guardian of the English. Todd's Life of Mil. p. xxviii, 
 
 * Holstenius. 
 
LIFE OF MILTON. 137 
 
 If he was honoured with lavish panegy- 
 ric by Francini and Dati at Florence, he 
 was celebrated in a strain of equal though 
 more compressed praise by Salsilli and Sel- 
 vaggi at Rome; by the former in a Latin te- 
 trastic, and by the latter in a distich in the 
 same language. At his next removal we shall 
 see our traveller distinguished by still more 
 lofty compliment, in the vehicle indeed of 
 still inferior verse: and for that opportunity 
 we shall reserve any observations which may 
 be suggested to us by the subject. At present 
 we will transcribe and, according to our usual 
 practice, translate the two Roman produc- 
 tions for the amusement of our readers. 
 
 Cede Meles; cedat depressa Mincius urna, 
 
 Sebetus Tassum desinat usque loqui. 
 At Thamesis victor cunctis ferat altior undasj 
 
 Nam per te, Milto, par tribus unus erit. 
 
 SALSILLI. 
 
 Meles, and Mincius! now more humbly glide: 
 Tasso's z Sebetus! now resign thy pride. 
 Supreme of rivers Thames henceforth shall be : 
 His Milton makes him equal to the three. 
 Graecia Mseonidem, jactet sibi Roma Maronem$ 
 
 Anglia Miltonum jactat utrique parem. 
 
 SELVAGGI. 
 
 Greece! vaunt your Homer's j Rome! your Maro's fame : 
 England in Milton boasts an equal name. 
 
 z The Sebeto, a small brook near Naples. The Sebethos, as 
 it was anciently called, was in former times a stream of more 
 consequence; and its present diminutive size may be ascribed to 
 the operations of the contiguous volcano. 
 
138 LIFE OF MILTON. 
 
 It was not long before the English bard 
 was supplied with an opportunity of repay- 
 ing to one of his Roman panegyrists the debt 
 of praise which had been thus contracted. 
 On the occasion of Salsilli's illness, Milton 
 sent to him those scazons, which are rich in 
 poetic imagery though inaccurate in their 
 metrical construction. 2 The concluding part 
 of this short poem is highly beautiful and 
 deserving of insertion. 
 
 O dulce divum munus! O Salus Hebes 
 Germana ! Tuq; Phoebe, morborum terror, 
 Pythone caeso, siv 7 e tu magis Psean 
 Libenter audis ; hie tuns sacerdos est. 
 Querceta Fauni, vosq; rore vinoso 
 Colles benigni, mitis Evandri sedes, 
 Siquid salubre vallibus frondet vestris, 
 Levamen aegro ferte certatim vati. 
 Sic ille, charis redditus rursum Musis, 
 Vicina dulci prata mulcebit cantu. 
 Ipse inter atros emirabitur lucos 
 Numa, ubi beatum degit otium aeternum, 
 Suam reclinis semper ^Egeriam spectans. 
 Tumidusq; et ipse Tibris, hinc delinitus, 
 Spei favebit annuae colonorum: 
 Nee in sepulchris ibit obsessum reges, 
 Nimium sinistro laxus irruens loro: 
 Sed fraena melius temperabit undarum, 
 Adusq; curvi salsa regna Portumni. 
 
 * In their scazons, the Greeks use a spondee in the fifth place, 
 but the Latins always an iambic. In the poem before us, Milton 
 has violated this rule of Roman prosody in no less than twenty- 
 one instances, by inserting either a spondee or an anapaest in the 
 place in question. This is to be guilty not of false quantity, but 
 of an erroneous fabric of verse. 
 
LIFE OF MILTON. 139 
 
 O Health, a sweet blessing from the empyreal sphere ! 
 
 Sister of Hebe, deign thy presence here! 
 
 Thou Phoebus too, or, if it please thee more, 
 
 By Paean's name thy godhead we implore : 
 
 (Since Python fell, the pale diseases fly, 
 
 Pierced with thy shafts and shrinking from thine eye:) 
 
 Chase sickness hence: it is thy priest who pines. 
 
 Ye groves of Faunus, and ye hills, whose vines 
 
 Weep balmy dews, where mild Evander sway'd, 
 
 If in your bloomy lawn or fragrant shade 
 
 One plant of healing energy be bred, 
 
 Haste! bring it to your drooping poet's bed : 
 
 That the sweet Muses, on his warbling tongue, 
 
 Once more may court your echoes with their song: 
 
 That pensive Numa in his twilight grove, 
 
 Where, tranced in endless rest and holy love, 
 
 He dwells on his ^Egeria's spotless form, 
 
 May feel new raptures from the tuneful charm: 
 
 That Tiber's self, enamour'd of the lay, 
 
 May check his fury in its devious way : 
 
 Nor, prone to raze the works of buried pride, 
 
 Urge his left bank, b but waft a patient tide , 
 
 And, faithful to the labours of the swain, 
 
 Wed his innoxious waters to the main. 
 
 It was probably at the Cardinal Barbe- 
 rini's concert, which we have mentioned, that 
 Milton was first struck with the charms and the 
 
 a The classical reader need not be informed that the simpli- 
 city and expressive conciseness of the original is unattainable i 
 any, or at least is unattained in this translation. The " reclinis 
 spectans" forms a beautiful image, which is omitted, or inade- 
 quately expressed in the English. 
 
 b The left bank of the Tiber at Rome is the lowest, and 
 consequently the most liable to be overflowed. The works of 
 buried pride are the ' f monumenta regis " of Horace, the tomb 
 of Numa. 
 
140 LIFE OF MILTON. 
 
 inimitable voice of Leonora Baroni, which 
 had been made the general theme of their 
 praise by the contemporary poets of Italy. 
 Of the three excellent Latin epigrams, in which 
 he has celebrated this fascinating woman, the 
 second is so admirable that our readers would 
 have cause to complain of us if we were to 
 refer them from our own page to any other 
 for the gratification of perusing it. 
 
 AD LEONORAM ROM./E CANENTEM. 
 EP. VII. 
 
 Altera Torquatum cepit Leonora poetam, 
 
 Cujus ab insano cessit amore furens. 
 Ah miser! ille tuo quanto felicius sevo 
 
 Perditus et propter te, Leonora,, foret! 
 Et te Pieria sensisset voce canentem,, 
 
 Aurea maternae fila movere lyrae ; 
 Quamvis Dircaeo torsisset lumina Pentheo 
 
 Savior, aut totus desipuisset iners; 
 Tu tamen errantes caeca vertigine sens as 
 
 Voce eadem poteras composuisse tua; 
 Et poteras, aegro spirans sub corde, quietem 
 
 Flexanimo cantu restituisse sibi. 
 
 TO LEONORA, SINGING AT ROME. 
 
 Another Leonora's charms inspired 
 
 The love that Tasso's phrensied senses fired. 
 
 c Leonora of Este, with whom Tasso was deeply enamoured. 
 The melancholy malady of this great poet is too generally known 
 to make any comment on it necessary. His madness and the 
 name of his mistress have been of admirable service to Miltoa 
 in this epigram. 
 
LIFE OF MILTOJtf. 141 
 
 More blest had been his fate were this his age ; 
 And you the inspirer of his amorous rage. 
 Oh ! had he heard the wonders of your song, 
 As leads your voice its liquid maze along: 
 Or seen you, in your mother's d right, command 
 The lyre, while rapture wakes beneath your hand ; 
 By Pentheus' wildness though his brain were tost, 
 Or his worn sense in sullen slumber lost, 
 His soul had check'd her wand'rings at the strain: 
 The soothing charm had lull'd his stormy brain: 
 Or, breathing with creative power, had driven 
 Death from his heart, and open'd it to heaven. 
 
 This lady is supposed to have been cele- 
 brated by Milton in her own language, and 
 to have been the object of his love in his Ita- 
 lian sonnets. Of these effusions of our poet's 
 gallantry I will not hazard an opinion. The 
 purity of their language has been commended 
 by Italian critics; and for any affected and 
 forced thoughts, which may be distinguish- 
 able in them, the character of the Italian 
 taste at that time may be admitted as an 
 apology. One of these short pieces, as ex- 
 hibiting a picture of some of the principal 
 features of the poet's own mind, may de- 
 serve to be transcribed. We shall soon see 
 this boasted fortitude demanded for severe 
 trials, and we shall find that it did not shrink. 
 
 d Adriana of Mantua, equally celebrated with her daughter 
 for her voice and her lyre. 
 
LIFE OF MILTON. 
 
 VI. 
 
 Giovane piano e simplicette amante, 
 
 Poi che fuggir me stesso in dubbio sono, 
 
 Madonna, a voi del mio cuor Thumil dono 
 Faro divoto j io certo a prove tante 
 L'hebbi fedele, intrepido, costante, 
 
 De pensieri legg'iadro, accorto e buono ; 
 
 Quando rugge il gran mondo, e scocca il tuono> 
 S'arma di se e d'intero diamante : 
 
 Tanto del forse, e d'invidia sicuro, 
 Di timori, e speranze, al popol use, 
 
 duanto d' ingegno, e d' alto valor vago, 
 
 E di cetra sonora, e delle muse : 
 Sol troverete in lal parte men duro, 
 Ove Amor mise I'insanabil ago. 
 
 Lady, to you a youth unknown to art, 
 
 (Who fondly from himself in thought would fly,) 
 
 Devotes the faith, truth, spirit, constancy, 
 And firm yet feeling temper of his heart j 
 Proved strong by trials for life's arduoys part: 
 
 When shakes the world and thunders roll on high, 
 
 All adamant, it dares the storm defy, 
 Erect, unconscious of the guilty start: 
 
 Not more above fear, envy, low desire, 
 And all the tyrants of the vulgar breast, 
 
 Than prone to hail the heaven-resounding lyre, 
 High worth, and Genius of the Muse possest: 
 Unshaken and entire, and only found 
 Not proof against the shaft when Love directs the wound. 
 
 An eye, like Milton's, created for the most 
 exquisite perception of beauty in all her 
 shapes, and an imagination ever solicit- 
 ously vagrant for gratification, even in the 
 regions of Arabian fiction and of Gothic 
 
LIFE OF MILTON. 143 
 
 romance, could not be insensible to those 
 opportunities of luxurious indulgence which 
 the capital of Italy afforded. Milton, as we 
 cannot reasonably doubt, studied the forms 
 of ideal nature, not only as they existed in 
 the marbles of ancient Greece, but also as they 
 breathed and glowed in the tints of modern 
 Italy. We may be certain that he contem* 
 plated with delight the animated walls of the 
 Vatican, and that his genius kindled and ex* 
 panded from the sublime frescoes of Michael 
 Angelo and the milder and more charac- 
 teristic canvass of Raffaelle. Imagination 
 will converse with imagination through the 
 medium of diversified art; and, whether 
 words e or forms be the exciters or conductors, 
 the idea will flash from mind to mind, and 
 
 * To speak with philosophical precision, forms are the sole 
 means by which the ideas of one mind can be imparted to an- 
 otherj for words merely stimulate the mind, to which they are 
 addressed, to form ideas or phantasms of its own. When we sec 
 the Hercules or the Transfiguration, we behold the very iden- 
 tical mental representation, in its immediate transcript, from 
 which Glycon fashioned his marble or Raffaelle traced his lines : 
 Tbut when we read the description of Paradise or the vale of Tempe 1 , 
 our minds are only urged, within certain limits and under some 
 particular modifications, to form -a creation of their own. If 
 fifty artists, without any intercourse with each other, were to 
 draw these scenes, not one of the draughts would be precisely 
 like another, though they might all be justified by the words of 
 the poet or the historian. 
 
144 LIFE OF MILTON. 
 
 will increase the mass of etherial fire wherever 
 it is received. The mind of Milton unquestion- 
 ably maintained an intercourse with the minds 
 of the great masters of the pencil, and pro- 
 bably derived from them what was afterwards 
 matured into the conceptions of his Satan and 
 his Raphael, his Adam and his Eve. But if 
 he became indebted on this occasion to the 
 genius of painting, his Muse has most amply 
 discharged the obligation to her " dumb sis- 
 ter/' by giving to Fuseli much more than she 
 borrowed from his lineal progenitor in the 
 pedigree of genius, Michael Angelo; and in- 
 ducing the ideas of that creation, displayed 
 in the Milton Gallery, which, constituting 
 the pride of the present times, will command 
 the admiration of posterity. 
 
 From Rome our traveller continued his 
 route to Naples; and, falling into company 
 on the road with a certain pilgrim or her- 
 mit, as he tells us, was by him, from whom 
 such a service could be the least expected, 
 introduced to the celebrated Giovanni Bat- 
 tista Manso, Marquis of Villa. This accom- 
 plished nobleman, who had formerly distin- 
 guished himself in the armies of Spain, was 
 now at an advanced age established in his 
 native city; and, though possessed of great 
 wealth high rank and eminent character, de- 
 
LIFE OF MILTON. 145 
 
 riving his principal renown from the friend- 
 ship of the illustrious Tasso; of whom when 
 living he had been the cherisher, and the 
 biographer when dead. He now opened his 
 arms to Milton, and received \\ith kindness 
 a poet still greater than his immortal friend. 
 The attentions which he paid to the English 
 traveller were of the most flattering nature, 
 not only conducting him through the vice- 
 roy's palace and to a sight of all that was 
 worthy to be shown in the city, but honour- 
 ing him also with some familiar and friendly 
 visits. The imprudent freedom, with which 
 our zealous protestant, unmindful of his 
 friend Wotton's counsel, had discovered his 
 sentiments on the subject of religion, was 
 the only circumstance which deprived him 
 of a still more unreserved communication 
 with this elegant Maecenas of modern Italy. 
 This was intimated to Milton, on his de- 
 parture from Naples, by Manso himself, 
 who with all his kindnesses on this occasion 
 had not satisfied the liberality of his own 
 mind, and who was desirous of explaining 
 the cause of the imaginary deficiency. He 
 had indeed pointed to this offence of reli- 
 gion in a Latin distich with which he had 
 presented his new guest, and which is cer- 
 tainly more remarkable for the height of its 
 
 L 
 
146 LIFE OF MILTON. 
 
 praise than for the goodness of its verse or 
 the justness and the originality f of its thought. 
 Generally known as it is, it shall be given 
 to our readers, with an apology for the at- 
 tempted translation of a pun. 
 
 Ut mens, forma, decor, fades, mos, si pietas sic, 
 
 Non Anglus verum hercle Angelas ipse fores. 
 
 
 With rrynd, form, manners, face did faith agree, 
 
 No ANGLE but an ANGEL wouldst thou be. 
 
 It has been remarked, and not without 
 malignity, that the complimentary offerings 
 of the Italian wits to our illustrious traveller 
 are not distinguishable for their merit as corn- 
 positions. We will not dispute the truth of 
 this observation; or affect to discover much 
 beauty in the Latin prose of Dati, or, though 
 this be rather of a higher order, in the Ita- 
 lian verse of Francini. We will even allow 
 that as the praise grows the poetry dwindles; 
 and that in this last distich, in which the 
 climax of compliment is complete, the Manso 
 
 f The conceit, such as it is, is borrowed from Gregory the 
 Archdeacon, who was afterwards raised to the Papal throne., in 
 the sixth century. 
 
 With the advantage of five syllables more than the English 
 verse, and of the double meaning of the word, mos, alluding both 
 to morals and to manners, the Latin hexameter cannot be ade- 
 quately represented by one line of five iambic feet in our language. 
 The, f ' decor," of the original is wholly omitted, and the, " mos," 
 only half inserted in my translation : but <f brevity/' in this in- 
 stance., " is the soul of wit." 
 
LIFE OF MILTON. 147 
 
 of Naples is inferior to the Salsilli and the 
 Selvaggi of Rome. But the intrinsic or the 
 relative merit of these short, and perhaps al- 
 most extemporaneous effusions is not an 
 object of our consideration. They must be 
 viewed by us with reference not to their au- 
 thors but to their object; and they cannot 
 fail to excite our surprise when we consider 
 them as the homage of acute men, accus- 
 tomed to contemplate and appreciate the 
 highest eiforts of the human mind, to a young 
 traveller, on a short visit from a distant coun- 
 try, who was not made illustrious by wealth 
 or by connexions, but who extorted these 
 bursts of admiration solely by the display of 
 talents and erudition. 
 
 It has been observed also that, in the in- 
 tercourse of praise with our author, the Ita- 
 lians gained more valuable commodities than 
 they gave. If this remark be just, as it in- 
 disputably is, with respect to the compli- 
 ment of Salsilli, it is still more prominently 
 true when referred to that of Manso. The 
 Latin poem, in which Milton addresses this 
 venerable friend and patron of the Muses, 
 is a high and admirable composition, which 
 to the praised g friend of Marino and of Tasso, 
 
 s Manso is named by Tasso, in the 20th book of his great 
 poem, among the princes of Italy. Tasso has also addressed to 
 
148 LIFE OF MILTON. 
 
 offers incense, kindled wilh a more celestial 
 flame than any with which he had hitherto 
 been propitiated. 
 
 The production is so beautiful that we 
 may perhaps be pardoned by our readers if 
 we present it to them entire. 
 
 MANSUS. 
 
 Haec quoque, Manse, tuse meditantur carmina laudi 
 Pierides, tibi, Manse, choro notissime Phoebi ; 
 Quandoquidem ille alium baud aequo est dignatus honore 
 Post Galli cineres et Mecaenatis Hetrusci. 
 Tu quoque, si nostrse tantum valet aura Camoense, 
 .Victrices hederas inter laurosque sedebis. 
 Te pridem magno felix concordia Tasso 
 Junxit, et seternis inscripsit nomina chartis: 
 Mox tibi dulciloquum non inscia Musa Marinnm 
 Tradidit; ille tuum dici se gaudet alumnum, 
 Dum canit Assyrios divum prolixus amores 3 h 
 Mollis et Ausonias stupefecit carmine nymphas. 
 Ille itidem moriens tibi soli debita vates 
 Ossa, tibi soli, supremaque vota reliquit : 
 Nee manes pietas tua chara fefellit amici : 
 Vidimus arridentem operoso ex aere poetara.' 
 
 him five sonnets and his dialogue on Friendship. Manso was 
 one of the founders and was also president of the academy of the 
 Otiosi at Naples. 
 
 h Milton alludes to the principal poem of Marino, II Adone. 
 
 1 A monument was erected to Marino at Naples by Manso. 
 Marino belonged to the academy of the Otiosi, of which Manso, 
 as we have mentioned, was the founder. Hence the propriety 
 of the epithet ' alumnus/ applied to Marino in his relation to 
 Manso. 
 

 LIFE OF MILTOX. 149 
 
 Nee satis hoc visum est in utrumque, et nee pia cessant 
 Officia in tumulo; cupis integros rapere Oreo, 
 Qua poles, atque avidas Parcarum eludere leges. 
 Amborum genus, et varia sub sorte peractam 
 Describis vitam, moresque, et dona Minervae: k 
 ^Emulus illius, Mycalen qui natus ad altam 1 
 
 k Manso became the biographer of his two friends Tasso and 
 Marino. 
 
 1 Mr. Warton's note on this passage is certainly unfortunate, 
 and must be inserted as a specimen of his critical and literary abi- 
 lity. " Mycalen qui natus ad altam," &c. " Plutarch who wrote 
 the Life of Homer. He was a'native of Bceotia, where Mycale 
 is a mountain. It is among those famous hills that blazed at 
 Phaeton's conflagration, Ovid. Metam. ii. 223. The allusion is 
 happy; as it draws with it an implicit comparison between Tasso 
 and Homer. In the epithet, " facundus," there is much elegance 
 and propriety. Plutarch is the great master of ancient bio- 
 graphy." [Milton's Juvenile Poems, p. 52Q. 2d ed ] 
 
 From the two concluding sentences of this curious note, the 
 unlearned reader might be led to conclude that (f facundus" was 
 the Latin representative of ancient biography; or, (if his dictionary 
 should acquaint him with the meaning of this epithet,) that ancient 
 biography was a species of composition altogether distinct from 
 modern; which his common sense and the experience of his 
 English reading would assure him to be in no way inseparably 
 and vitally connected with eloquence, or the beauties of com- 
 position. But the whole note -is peculiarly unlucky. Not a 
 word in the two lines of Milton is applicable to Plutarch, and 
 every word is applicable to Herodotus. The epithet, " facundus," 
 which is admirably appropriate to the latter, cannot without some 
 compulsion of its meaning be assigned to the former. Of the two 
 lives of Homer, which are extant, it is more probable that the 
 Ionic was written by Herodotus than that the Attic was by Plu- 
 tarch. Mycale is a mountain not in Boeotia, as Mr. W. affirms, 
 but in Ionia near the borders of Caria, the native country of He- 
 rodotus. Ovid, whom Mr. Warton quotes on this occasion, is 
 no evidence respecting the situation of Mycale. In the cited 
 passage his mountains are thrown together without any other re- 
 
150 LIFE OF MILTON. 
 
 Kettulit -/EoJii vitam facundus Homeri. 
 Ergo ego te, Clius et magni nomine Phcebi, 
 Manse pater, jubco longum salvere per aevum, 
 Missus Hyperboreo juvenis peregrinus ab axe. 
 Nee tu longinqnam bonus aspernabere Musam, 
 Quae, nuper gelida vix enutrita sub arcto, 
 Imprudens Italas ausa est v61itare per urbes, 
 Nos etiam in nostro modulantes flumine cygnos 
 Credimus obscuras noctis sensisse per umbras, 
 Qua Thamesis late puris argenteus urnis 
 Oceani glaucos perfundit gurgite crines: 
 Quin et in has quondam pervenit m Tityrus oras. 
 
 Sed neque nos genus incultum, nee inutile Phcebo, 
 Qua plaga septeno mundi sulcata Trione 
 Brumalem patitur longa sub nocte Booten. 
 Nos etiam colimus Phoebum, nos munera Phcebo, 
 
 ference than to that of metre 5 and Mycale succeeds to the Phry- 
 gian Dindymus : 
 
 Dindymaque et Mycale,, natusque ad sacra Cithaeron. 
 Mycalessus is noticed by'* Pliny as a mountain of Bceotia; and this 
 circumstance may possibly have induced Mr. Warton's mistake. 
 
 For whatever convincing reasons the Life of Homer imputed to 
 Herodotus may now be rejected as spurious, Milton either enter- 
 tained no doubts of its authenticity or did not allow them to pre- 
 vent him from alluding to the suspected work, in the passage on 
 which Mr. War ton has here commented. When I say that the Ionic 
 Life was more prolally written by Herodotus than the Attic was 
 by Plutarch, I am far from intending to assert the genuineness of 
 the former production : for if I could not from my own small fund 
 of classical knowledge adduce reasons to lead me to an opposite 
 conclusion, I should be withheld from so erroneous an opinion by 
 the judgment of more than one of the great scholars of the pre- 
 sent day, whom I am proud to rank either among my friends or 
 my near connexions. 
 
 m Chaucer, who travelled into Italy, is distinguished in Spen- 
 ser's pastorals by the name of Tityrus. 
 
 * L. 4. c. 7. 
 
LIFE OF MILTON. 151 
 
 FJaventes spicas et lutea mala canistris 
 Halantemque crocum, perhibet nisi vana vetustas, 
 Misimus, et lectas Druidum de gente choreas. 
 Gens Druides antiqua, sacris operata deorum, 
 Heroum laudes imitandaque gesta canebant. 
 Hinc quoties festo cingunt altaria cantu, 
 Delo in herbosa, Graiae de more puellae, 
 Carminibus Isetis memorant Corineida Loxo, n 
 Fatidicamque Upin cum fiavicoma Hecaerge, 
 Nuda Caledonio variatas pectora fuco. 
 
 Fortunate senex, ergo, quacunque per orbem 
 Torquati decus, et nomen celeb rabitur ingens, 
 Claraque perpetui succrescet fama Marinij 
 Tu quoque in ora frequens venies plausumque virorum, 
 Et parili carpes iter immortale volatu. 
 Dicetur turn sponte tuos habitasse penates 
 Cynthius, et famulas venisse ad limina Musas. 
 At non sponte domum tamen idem, et regis adivit 
 Rura Pheretiadae, ccelo fugitivus Apollo; 
 Ille licet magnum Alciden susceperat hospes. 
 Tantum ubi clamosos placuit vitare bubulcos, 
 
 n Upis, Loxo, and Hecaerge are the names of the daughters 
 of Boreas, who offer presents to Apollo in Callimachus's hymu 
 to Delos. 
 
 Ts Ao>' TE KXI svaitov 
 
 sis 
 
 The fable of Apollo, driven by Jupiter from heaven and 
 compelled to tend the flocks of Admetus king of Thessaly, is 
 too well known to require a repetition of it. Mr. Warton has 
 observed, before me, that Milton in this passage has imitated a 
 beautiful chorus in the Alcestis. I wish however that Milton 
 on this occasion, preserving the moderation of Euripides, had 
 restricted to the animal creation the effects of Apollo's melodies : 
 but perhaps it was not necessary that any limitation of power 
 should be prescribed to the lyre of a god. 
 
LIFE OE MILTON. 
 
 Nobile mansueti cessit Chironis in antrum, 
 Irriguos inter saltus frondosaque tecta 
 Peneium prope rivum : ibi saepe sub ilice nigra, 
 Ad citharas strepitum, blanda prece victus amici, 
 Exilii duros lenibat voce labores. 
 Turn neque ripa suo, barathro nee fixa sub imo 
 Saxa stetere loco ; nutat Trachinia rupes, 
 Nee sentit solitas, immania pondera, silvas; 
 Emotaeque suis properant de collibus orni, 
 Mulcenturque novo maculosi carmine lynces. 
 Diis dilecte senex, te Jupiter aequus oportet 
 Nascentem, et roiti lustrarit lumine Phoebus, 
 Atlantisque neposj neque enim, nisi charus ab ortu 
 Diis superis, poterit magno favisse poetae. 
 Hinc longseva tibi lento sub flore senectus 
 Vernat, et ^Esonios lucratur vivida fusosj 
 Nondum deciduos servans tibi frontis honores> 
 Ingeniumque vigens, et adultum mentis acumen'. 
 O mihi si mea sors talem concedat amicum, 
 PhcKboeos decorasse viros qui tarn bene norir, 
 Siquandb indigenas revocabo in carmina reges, 
 Arturumque etiam sub terris bella moventem : P 
 Aut dicam invictae sociali foedere mensaei 
 Magnanimos heroasj et, (O modo spiritus adsit!) 
 Frangam Saxonicas Britonum sub Marte phalanges. 
 Tandem ubi non tacitae permensus tempora vitas, 
 Annorumque satur, cineri sua jura relinquam, 
 Ille mihi lecto madidis astaret ocellisj 
 Astanti sat erit si dicam, sim tibi curae. 
 Ille meos artus, liventi morte solutos, 
 Curaret parva componi molliter urna : 
 Forsitan et nostros ducat de marmore vultus, 
 
 f Arthur in the old fables of Britain is supposed to be still 
 living in the kingdom of the faeries : whence he is to return at 
 the appointed season for the purposes of conquest and dominion. 
 i The knights of the round-table. 
 
LIFE OF MILTON. 153 
 
 Nectens aut Paphia myrti aut Parnasside lauri 
 Fronde comas, at ego secura pace quiescam. 
 Turn quoque, si qua fides, si praemia certa bonorum, 
 Ipse ego ccelicolum semotus in zethera divum, 
 Quo labor et mens pura vehunt atque ignea virtus, 
 Secreti haec aliqua mundi de parte videbo, 
 Quantum fata sinunt; et, tota mente serenum 
 Ridens, purpureo sufFundar lumine vultus, 
 Et simul sethereo plaudam mihi laetus Olympo. 
 
 MANSO. 
 
 Once more the Muses to your praise aspire, 
 
 O Manso! dear to the Phoebean quire; 
 
 Graced by the God, and made his chosen pride 
 
 Since his own Gallus and Maecenas died. 
 
 My Muse would throne you, were her power so great, 
 
 With bays and ivy clustring round your state. 
 
 Friendship once mingled your's and Tasso's fame ; 
 
 And stamp'd his deathless pages with your name. 
 
 Marino next, the tender and refined, 
 
 Her child to you the conscious Muse assign'd: 
 
 He own'd you for a father, when his tongue 
 
 The Assyrian Goddess and her lover sung ; 
 
 While on the languid tale the Ausonian maidens hung. 
 
 And your's were too the latest vows he breathed 5 
 
 To you alone his ashes he bequeathed. 
 
 Nor you the manes of your friend deceived: 
 
 The docile brass his pleasing form received. 
 
 Struck we behold him smiling from the grave 5 
 
 And feel your pious potency to save. 
 
 Nor thus confined, your hallowM cares contend 
 
 To snatch entire from death each tuneful friend. 
 
 Proudly with fate successful war to wage, 
 
 You bid them live, immortal in your page : 
 
 Their fortunes, virtues, talents you define, 
 
 Till all the man comes out in your design; 
 
154 LIFE OF MILTON. 
 
 Like him whose hand ./Eolian Homer drew, 
 To buried genius sensitively true. 
 Hail then! from Clio and your Phoebus hail! 
 Crown'd be your locks with wreaths that never fail! 
 Hail, honour' d sire! in homage to your worth 
 A youth salutes you from the distant north. 
 Nor you this offering of a Muse despise, 
 Who, scarcely nursed beneath her arctic skies, 
 With hasty step has traced the Hesperian shore, 
 Your towns, your arts, your manners to explore. 
 We too can boast our swans, whose liquid throats 
 Cheer the dull darkness with their dulcet notes; 
 Where silver Thames, in proud diffusion spread, 
 Pours his full flood on ocean's azure head. 
 We too can boast that Tityrus of yore, 
 To your gay clime the Muse of Britain bore. 
 
 Phoebus avows us, and not rude our strain, 
 Though our night pause beneath the stormy wain. 
 We too have bow'd to Phoebus, and of old, 
 Our blushing orchards and our fields of gold, 
 If ancient lore be true, have heap'd his shrine, 
 Brought by the fathers of the Druid line. 
 (The hoary Druid, in harmonious praise, 
 Hymn'd the blest Gods, and sung heroic days.) 
 Hence, round the festal altar, hand in hand, 
 The Grecian maids, on Delos' flowery strand, 
 To Loxo, Upis the prophetic fair, 
 And Hecaerge with the golden hair, 
 Whose painted breasts their British birth betray, 
 Swell the glad chorus and exalt the lay. 
 
 Blest Sire ! where'er Torquato's victor Muse 
 Her glorious track to fame o'er earth pursues; 
 Where'er extends Marino's mild renown, 
 Your name and worth and honours shall be known. 
 In the same car of triumph as you ride, 
 Still. shall you share the plaudit and the pride: 
 Deck'd with their crowns, in all their pornp of state, 
 Shall pass with them through fame's eternal gate. 
 
 
LITE Or MILTON. 155 
 
 Succeeding times shall say, the God of song 
 
 Dwell'd, with his minstrel maids, your train among, 
 
 A willing inmate; not as once, from heaven 
 
 By Jove's stern wrath to serve Admetus driven, 
 
 He press'd with haughty step the regal floor, 
 
 Though great Alcides there had trod before. 
 
 Indignant still he watch'd the bleating plains : 
 
 But oft, to shun the rudeness of the swains, 
 
 Tired would he seek mild Chiron's learned cave, 
 
 (Which vines o'erhang, and lucid fountains lave, 
 
 By Pencils' bank,) and there diffusely laid, 
 
 Fann'd by soft breezes in the whispering shade, 
 
 Would sing, indulgent to his friend's desire, 
 
 And cheat his tedious exile with the lyre. 
 
 Then rocks would move, the stream forget to flowj 
 
 Great Pelion's summits with their forests bow; 
 
 Trees, quick with ear, confess the sweet controll; 
 
 And fawning pards submit their savage soul. 
 Heaven-loved Old Man ! to gild your natal day 
 
 Jove, sure, and Phosbus shot their purest ray, 
 
 With Maia's son ; for no less honour'd birth 
 Could suit the soul that grasp' d Torquato's worth. 
 Hence years to you the youth of ^Eson bring : 
 
 Your age is winter, but it buds like spring. 
 With its full pride of hair your head is fraught, 
 And keen and forceful strikes your manly thought. 
 Oh! might a friend, endow'd like you by heaven, 
 To adorn the bard and judge the strain be given, 
 Whene'er my Muse shall sound the British strings, 
 And wake again to song her native kings; 
 Hail her great Arthur who, from mortals far, 
 Now pants for his return and burns for war; 
 Record the hero-knights who sheathed the sword, 
 Link'd in strong union round the mighty board; 
 And break, (if daring genius fail not here,) 
 The Saxon phalanx with the British spear. 
 Then when, not abjectly discharged, my trust 
 Of life was closed, and dust required its dust, 
 
 
156 LIFE OF MILTON. 
 
 Oh might that friend, with dewy eyelids near, 
 Catch my last sigh, and tell me I was dear. 
 Then my pale limbs, resolved in death's embrace,, 
 Beneath an humble tomb devoutly place; 
 And haply too arrest my fleeting form 
 In marble, from the sculptor's chisel warm 
 And full of soul ; while round my temples play 
 The Paphian myrtle and Parnassian bay. 
 Meantime, composed in consecrated rest, 
 I share the eternal sabbath of the blest. 
 If faith deceive not, if the mighty prize 
 Be fix'd for ardent virtue in the skies ; 
 There, where the wing of holy toil aspires, 
 Where the just mingle with celestial quires, 
 There, as my fates indulge, I may behold 
 These pious labours from my world of gold: 
 There, while a purple glory veils my face, 
 Feel my mind swell to fit her heavenly place: 
 And, smiling at my life's successful fight, 
 Exult and brighten in etherial light. 1 ' 
 
 r Mr. W. Giffbrd, the author of the Baviad, whose probity 
 of heart and benevolence of manners conciliate as powerfully 
 in private life as his poetic and critical talents strike in public, 
 was so kind as to read the manuscripts of this translation, and 
 of that of the Damon. The alterations which he suggested 
 were few, and, excepting in one place in the Damon which shall 
 be noticed, only of single words. The reader perhaps may wish 
 that these suggestions had been more numerous, and of greater 
 comprehension. 
 
 At a period long subsequent to the publication of this work, 1 
 succeeded in procuring a copy of Mr. J. Sterling's poems, among 
 which I was induced, by Mr.Todd and Mr. Hayley, to expect an ex- 
 cellent translation of the Mansnr. Mr. S'erling seems to be a man 
 of learning and taste; and his little volume contains some pieces 
 which may be perused with pleasure by the poetic reader: but his 
 translation of the Mansus has disappointed me, and is unquestion- 
 
LIFE OF MILTOX. 157 
 
 From a passage in this poem, we may 
 discover that the project of some great poetic 
 
 ably a very unsuccessful attempt. As it omits, or only suggests a 
 hint of some of the finest passages of the original,, it must be pro- 
 nounced to be imperfect ; and while the whole of it is deficient 
 in force, many of its lines are peculiarly weak and distinguished 
 from prose only by the rhyme with which they are closed. Some 
 of the verses however are good; and it may perhaps be placed, 
 with respect to merit, by the side of Dr Langhorne's translation 
 of the Damon, another composition which is so luckless as to 
 experience Mr. Hayley's praise. 
 
 If I had a right to make so free with my readers time, I would 
 submit to them the whole of Mr. Sterling's version, that they 
 might determine for themselves on its value : but as this must not 
 be done, I will content myself with transcribing one of its passages, 
 premising that the following eight verses are to supply the place 
 of no less than twenty-one beautiful lines of the original, from 
 " Fortunate sencx," to " Mulcenturque novo maculosi carmine 
 lynces." 
 
 " O happy sage, thy name shall ever live : 
 Remotest climes the meed of praise shall give; 
 Wheree'er Torquato shall be haii'd divinej 
 Wheree'er Marino's growing fame shall shine. 
 Cinthius himself thy festive board has graced: 
 The laurell'd Muses round their God were placed : 
 And wit refined, and manly sense were there ; 
 With bright-eyed fancy, fairest of the fair. 
 
 In a note annexed to his translation, Mr. S. has anticipated 
 me in the censure of Mr. Warton's comment on " Mycalen qui 
 natus ad altam;" the erroneousness of which is so palpable as to 
 be obvious to any reader who has passed the threshold of classical 
 literature. Why should Mr. S. falsify the quantity of the penult 
 in Mycale, in the following very poor lines? 
 
 " Born near sublime Mycale, history's sire, 
 Thus paints with eloquence the Homeric lyre/' 
 
158 LIFE OF MILTOJ\ r . 
 
 work, which Milton had formerly intimated 
 to his friend, Deodati, as existing then only 
 in distant and indistinct prospect, was now 
 brought closer and in a more specific form 
 to the poet's sight. The expanding con- 
 sciousness of his own powers, the commen- 
 xlations of the Italian literati, and, above all 
 perhaps, the conversation and encouraging 
 judgment of the friend of Tasso seem now 
 to have rendered him more resolute in his 
 pursuit of the epic palm and more confident 
 of his success. " 1 began thus far" (he tells 
 us) " to assent to them," (his Italian intimates,) 
 " and divers of my friends at home, and not 
 less to an inward prompting, which grew 
 daily upon me, that by labour and intent 
 study, (which I take to be my portion in this 
 life,) joined with the strong propensity of 
 nature, I might perhaps leave something so 
 written to aftertimes as they should not wil- 
 lingly let it die/' s 
 
 Although, from the example of the Ita- 
 lian poets and from the difficulty of asserting 
 a place even in the second class among those 
 of Rome, he was now determined to em- 
 ploy his native language as the tongue of his 
 poetry, he was not yet decided with respect 
 
 s Reasons of C. Govern, P. W. i. 120. 
 
LIFE OF MILTON. 15Q 
 
 to its subject or even to its form. " Time 
 serves not," (he says,) " and perhaps I might 
 seem too profuse to give any certain account 
 of what the mind at home, in the spacious 
 circuits of her musing, hath liberty to pro- 
 pose to herself, though of highest hope and 
 hardest attempting: whether that epic form,- 
 whereof the two pieces of Homer and those 
 other two of Virgil and Tasso are a diffuse, 
 and the book of Job a brief model; or whe- 
 ther the rules of Aristotle herein are strictly 
 to be kept, or nature to be followed, which 
 in them that know art and use judgment 
 is no transgression but an enriching of art; 
 and lastly, what king or knight before the 
 conquest might be chosen, in whom to lay the 
 pattern of a Christian hero. And as Tasso 
 gave to a prince of Italy his choice, whether 
 he would command him to write of Godfrey's 
 expedition against the infidels or Belisarius 
 against the Goths or Charlemain against 
 the Lombards, if to the instinct of nature 
 and the imboldning of art aught may be 
 trusted, and that there be nothing adverse 
 in our clime* or the fate of this age, it haply 
 would be no rashness, from an equal dili- 
 
 * In this and in other passages of his various works, Milton 
 seems to attribute to climate an influence over the human intel- 
 lect, which experience has demonstrated not to exist: and on this 
 
160 LIFE OF MILTON. 
 
 gencc and inclination, to present the like 
 offer to our own ancient stories/' 
 
 The length of time during which his mind 
 had entertained this object, -with the diffi- 
 culty and the reasons which urged him to 
 be sanguine though not assured of its accom- 
 plishment, is subsequently stated. " The 
 thing which I had to say, and those inten- 
 tions, which have lived within me ever since 
 I could conceive myself any thing worth to 
 my country, I return to crave excuse that 
 urgent reason hath pluckt from me by an 
 abortive and foredated discovery; and the 
 accomplishment of them lies not but in a 
 power above man's to promise : but that 
 none hath by more studious ways endea- 
 voured; and with more unwearied spirit that 
 none shall that I dare almost aver of my- 
 self, as far as life and free leisure will ex- 
 tend/' &c. &c. " Neither do I think it shame 
 
 erroneous opinion Montesquieu, as is generally known, has rested 
 a great part of his system. Climate, otherwise than as in its ex- 
 tremes it may affect the physical and organic nature of man, evi- 
 dently possesses no ascendency over his mental powers. The 
 differences of the human intellect, regarded with reference to 
 nations, may uniformly be traced to political and moral causes. 
 Wherever man is free arid happy, not oppressed by the iniquity 
 of government or solicitously struggling for the means of sub- 
 sistence, he will always be found to exult in the full energies of 
 his mind. 
 
LIFE OF MILTON. l6l 
 
 to covenant with any knowing reader, that 
 for some few years yet I may go on trust 
 with him toward the payment of what I am 
 now indebted, as being a work not to be 
 raised from the heat of youth or the va- 
 pours of wine, like that which flows at 
 waste from the pen of some vulgar amour- 
 ist or the trencher fury of a rhyming para- 
 site; nor to be obtained by the invocation 
 of dame Memory and her siren daughters; 
 but by devout prayer to that eternal Spirit, 
 who can enrich with all utterance and know- 
 ledge, and sends out his Seraphim with the 
 hallowed fire of his altar to touch and purify 
 the lips of whom he pleases/' 11 &c. 
 
 We must surety be struck with that noble 
 and sublime spirit which pervades these pas- 
 sages, and admire that conscious force with 
 that devout diffidence which they exhibit. 
 It may entertain us also to discover from 
 them the very different sensations with which 
 Milton and some of our more modern poets 
 seem to have contemplated the arduous la- 
 bour of constructing an epic poem. But all 
 the parties on this occasion may be right 
 with reference to their own particular object. 
 After intimating the toils by sea and land, 
 
 " Reas. of C, Govern. P. W. i. 123. 
 M 
 
162 LIFE OF MILTOST. 
 
 by opposition from earth and heaven which 
 his hero was to sustain and finally, by the 
 assistance of the fates and of Jupiter, to 
 overcome, the poet closes the awful recital 
 with this majestic line 
 
 Tantae raolis erat Romanam condere gentem. 
 So great a toil it was to found imperial Rome. 
 
 This was spoken of a mighty empire which 
 was to extend over the world and to endure 
 for a succession of ages: but an Arab camp 
 may be planted in one day, and its vestiges 
 may be effaced by the wind of the desert in 
 another. 
 
 Having completed his intended residence 
 at Naples, he addressed himself to the exe- 
 cution of the remaining part of his plan of 
 travel which extended to Sicily and Greece; 
 those regions on which the classic imagina- 
 tion loves to dwell, which it invests with un- 
 fading green and brightens with perpetual 
 sunshine. The fancy of Milton was, no 
 doubt, strongly excited by the approach of 
 that time when he was to tread the vales of 
 Enna and of Tempe, the plains on which 
 Gelon and Miltiades had triumphed for the 
 liberty of Greece over Carthage and Persia, 
 the favoured spot where Theocritus had 
 charmed the ear with his Doric melodies, 
 

 LIFE OF MILTON. 1(53 
 
 or Euripides had drawn tears with his pa- 
 thetic scene. But the dream of fancy was 
 soon to be interrupted, and duty required a 
 privation to which our traveller did not he- 
 sitate to submit. As he was preparing for 
 his passage to Sicily, he received letters from 
 England, acquainting him with the distracted 
 state of his country and with the near pros- 
 pect, which affrighted it, of a civil war. His 
 own account on this occasion is concise and 
 impressive. 
 
 " As I was desirous," he says, " to pass 
 into Sicily and Greece, the melancholy intelli- 
 gence from England of the civil war recalled 
 me: for I esteemed it dishonourable for me 
 to be lingering abroad, even for the improve- 
 ment of my mind, when my fellow citizens 
 were contending for their liberty at home/'* 
 
 x " In Siciliam quoque et Gracciam trajicere volentenr, me 
 tristis ex Anglia belli civilis nuntius revocavit: turpe enim ex- 
 istimabam, durn mei cives de libertate dimicarent^ ne animi causa, 
 otiose peregrinaii." 
 
 Def. Sec. P. W. v. 231. 
 
 When Milton speaks of the civil war as already begun, and 
 I mention it as existing only in prospect at the same period, we 
 do not give incompatible accounts: he considers the civil war 
 as begun by the resistance of the Scots, and I as commencing, 
 somewhat later, at the declaration of the English parliament 
 for the raising of an army, or at the immediately subsequent 
 event of the siege of Hull. The Scots rebellion began in 1637, 
 the civil war of England in 1642. 
 
164 LIFE OF MILTON. 
 
 He resolved however to revisit Rome, 
 and, though he was cautioned by some 
 friendly merchants to avoid that city where 
 the English Jesuits were meditating plans 
 against his safely, he persevered in his reso- 
 lution and returned to the papal capital. 
 Here, according to his previous determina- 
 tion, neither timidly concealing nor ostenta- 
 tiously flaunting his religious opinions, he 
 continued in fearless openness for nearly two 
 months; and whenever his religion was at- 
 tacked, he scrupled not to defend it with 
 spirit, even within the precincts of the sa- 
 cerdotal palace. Whatever dangers might 
 threaten him in this strong hold of priestly 
 domination, (and I can see no reason for 
 supposing that there were none,) they were 
 averted by a good Providence, and he was 
 allowed to repair again in safety to Florence. 
 
 His second visit to this city, which the 
 kindness of his friends made a species of 
 home to him, was of equal duration with his 
 first. He stole indeed a few days from it 
 to pass them at Lucca, the former residence 
 of the Deodati, the family of his respected and 
 beloved schoolfellow. When he departed 
 from Florence, he crossed the Apennines 
 and travelled, through Bologna and Ferrara, 
 
LIFE OF MILTO1ST. 165 
 
 to Venice. 7 He spent a month in viewing 
 the curiosities of this celebrated city, which 
 had once grasped the sceptre of Constantine, 
 and where national prosperity and individual 
 happiness had flourished for some centuries 
 under the controll of a rigid but a regulated 
 and self-balanced aristocracy. Having pro- 
 vided for the safely of the books which he 
 had collected in Italy by procuring a place 
 for them in a vessel bound for England, he 
 pursued his returning course through Verona 
 and Milan, over the Pennine Alps and by 
 the lake Lemanus, to Geneva. 
 
 The name of this city, associated in his 
 mind at a later period with the calumnies 
 of his profligate adversary, Moius, induces 
 
 y At the name of Venice every thoughtful and generous 
 bosom must heave a sigh of pain and indignation, when the 
 spectacle recurs of her present situation and of its detestable 
 cause. When we see a city, after ages of independence and 
 renown, consigned by unfeeling policy to the dead oppression 
 of a foreign and rigid yoke, can we do otherwise lhan curse 
 the cruelty of ambition ? than execrate all the parties woo 
 were involved in the guilt of the transaction, the power that 
 permitted, the robber who seized, and the thief who accepted 
 the plunder France, Buonaparte, and the Emperor? The fate 
 of Switzerland is equally to be lamented in its effect and exe- 
 crated in its cause : but in this age, more than in any former one, 
 the happiness of man seems to be made the sport and victim of 
 individual ambition. 
 
 Since this note was written, Venice has passed again into 
 the hands of her first foreign tyrant: and she may be yet reserved 
 to be the subject of many melancholy and mortifying revolutions. 
 
166 LIFE OF MILTON". 
 
 him, in his own relation of his travels, so- 
 lemnly to invoke God as the witness of his 
 
 / 
 
 truth when he declares that, residing in a 
 country where much license was admitted, 
 he had preserved himself pure from stain 
 and reproach; perpetually assured that, if 
 offences could escape the observation of man, 
 they must yet lie exposed under the eye of 
 God. 2 His visit indeed to Italy was induced 
 by such motives and occupied with such 
 business as to be nearly insusceptible of any 
 tainting suspicion. It was undertaken after 
 a studious and irreproachable youth, when 
 the first effervescence of the blood was eva- 
 porated, and for the purpose of continuing 
 rather than of interrupting his literary pur- 
 suits. During his residence in this polished 
 country, his time seems to have been fully 
 engaged with viewing its curiosities and 
 with the conversation of its learned men. 
 His principal delay was in those cities which 
 were the most celebrated for their learning, 
 their arts, or their antiquities; and, while he 
 gave eight months to Rome and Florence, 
 
 z Quae urbs, cum in mentem mihi liinc veniat Mori calum- 
 niatoris, facit ut Deum hie rursus testem invocem, me his om- 
 nibus in locis, ubi tarn multa licent, ab omni flagitio ac probro 
 integrum atq; intactum vixisse, illud perpetub cogitantem, si 
 liominum latere oculos possem, Dei certe non posse. 
 
 Def. Secun. P. W. v, 282. 
 
LIFE OF MILTON. 16? 
 
 he allotted only one to the great patroness of 
 pleasure, the queen of the Adriatic. 
 
 The charge of profligacy against our Ita- 
 lian traveller has long since been dropped: 
 but he has been accused, with more speci- 
 ousness, of pursuing his route with so much 
 rapidity as to allow himself only to contem- 
 plate the spectacle of the country without 
 obtaining an acquaintance with the laws or 
 the customs, the characters or the manners of 
 its inhabitants. The moral view of a country 
 cannot certainly be scanned by any eye with 
 so much facility as the natural; and none but 
 the most prominent lineaments of the former 
 can be caught at a glance, even perhaps by 
 the most inquisitive and intelligent traveller. 
 Let it be recollected however, in the defence of 
 Milton upon this occasion, that his previous 
 intimacy in his closet with Italy left him little, 
 if any thing, to know of that interesting re- 
 gion more than what a visit of a few months 
 would readily give to him. Familiar with the 
 language the authors and the history of the 
 country, he wanted only that acquaintance 
 
 ith it which his eye alone could obtain, or 
 the personal communication of its men of ta- 
 lents and learning supply. To these his access 
 was immediate and perfect; and the short 
 
 ime which he passed beyond the Alps was 
 
l6S LIFE OF MILTON. 
 
 sufficient for him to measure his own strength 
 on the most renowned arena of literature in 
 Europe, and to receive and to give know- 
 ledge in a generous traffic with the first men 
 of the age. If his course was rapid and 
 brilliant, it was not useless to others or to 
 himself. 3 He was a meteor which, gather- 
 ing all the luminous particles within the 
 sphere of its attraction, absorbed and blended 
 them with its own radiant body for the sole 
 purpose of diffusing a stronger emanation of 
 light. 
 
 The time for which he suspended his 
 journey at Geneva, the Rome of Calvinism, 
 is not related; and we only know that it was 
 sufficiently long for him to contract an inti- 
 macy and friendship with two of its most 
 eminent theologians, Frederic Spanheim and 
 Giovanni Deodati, the uncle of his friend 
 Charles. From Geneva he retraced his for- 
 mer road through France, and arrived in 
 England, after an absence of a year and 
 three months, about the time of the King's 
 
 a The advantage, which he is supposed to have gained from 
 Galileo's conversation, has already been mentioned; and we, 
 with some of his other biographers, have inferred the growth 
 and direction which his imagination acquired from the works 
 of the great painters of Italy. His intercourse with Manso may 
 perhaps be classed with the prime benefits resulting from his 
 transalpine visit. 
 
LIFE OP MILTON. 169 
 
 return from his second expedition against 
 Scotland, when his disaffected forces b had 
 . been obliged by Leslie to retreat. The crisis 
 was striking, and the mind of Milton, checked 
 as he had been by his patriotism in his pur- 
 suit of an interesting object, was undoubtedly 
 very powerfully affected by it. 
 
 His public sensations however were for 
 a time overpowered by those which resulted 
 from the calamity of a private loss. Afflic- 
 tion met his first step on British ground, 
 and wrung his heart for the death of his be- 
 loved friend, Charles Deodati. He had in- 
 deed, while abroad, been touched by a ru- 
 mour of this melancholy event: but he was 
 now wounded with the fatal certainty; and 
 what was formerly softened by distance and 
 the engagements of a new scene was at this 
 moment made painfully present to him by its 
 association with almost every object which 
 occurred to his eye. Young Deodati, who 
 seems to have merited the place which he 
 possessed in Milton's regard, was a native of 
 England though of an Italian family, ori- 
 
 b The soldiers, with a just feeling of the cause in which they 
 were engaged, refused to fight. The King was heard to say 
 " that his army, he thought, feared not to encounter men or 
 devils, and yet he could not make them strike a stroke against 
 the Scots." 
 
170 LIFE OF MILTON. 
 
 ginally from Lucca but in its last generation 
 established at Geneva. His father, Theo- 
 dore, came early in life to England and, 
 marrying a lady of good family and fortune, 
 settled himself in this country, and practised 
 as a physician. The son was bred to the pro- 
 fession of his father; and, having attained to 
 very eminent proficiency in literature, he was 
 now commencing the exercise of his profes- 
 sional duties in Cheshire, when his premature 
 death disappointed the friendship of Milton 
 and the hopes of the world. The immediate 
 cause or the precise time of this event, which 
 happened when our author was at Florence, 
 is no where, as 1 can find, mentioned. That 
 it excited all his sensibilities cannot be doubt- 
 ed, since the Latin pastoral, in which, as he 
 expresses it, he laments his solitude/ bears, 
 deeply starnpt upon the gold of poetry, the 
 genuine impression of sorrow, and is as ho- 
 nourable to his heart as it is to his talents. 
 
 This effusion of strong grief, lowered into 
 melancholy and powerful to incline without 
 oppressing the fancy, is entitled to very high 
 regard from every reader of taste. It has 
 
 c Nee dum aderat Thyrsi s, pastorem scilicet ilium 
 Dulcis amor Musae Thusca retinebat in urbe. 
 
 Ep. Dam. 1. 12. 
 d Se suamque solitudinem hoc carmine deplorat. Arg. E. D. 
 
LIFE OF MILTON. 171 
 
 been censured and lias been defended: but 
 the deed in either case will perhaps be 
 viewed with indifference by the unprejudiced 
 and able critic. "It is written/' as it has 
 been superciliously observed, " with the com- 
 mon but childish imitation of pastoral life;" 6 
 and this has been excused " as the fault, of 
 the poet's age;" and as compensated by some 
 passages in the poem, " wandering far beyond 
 the bounds of bucolic song." f " Childish imi- 
 tation" is every where the proper object of 
 censure, or, to speak more accurately, of con- 
 tempt: but how the imitation of any mode of 
 social life can with justice be thus, generally 
 and without reference to the execution, con- 
 demned and stigmatised as childish; or how 
 a writer can be honestly made the subject of 
 contemptuous remark for employing any al- 
 lowed and established species of composition 
 as the vehicle of his thoughts, is more than I 
 can possibly comprehend. The defence of 
 pastoral poetry in the abstract would be a 
 very easy task: but the digression, which it 
 would induce, would lead us too far and de- 
 tain us too long from our principal topic. 
 For our immediate purpose it will be sufficient 
 
 e See Johnson's Life of Milton. 
 
 f See Warton's note at the end of the poem, in his edition of 
 Milton's Juvenile poetry. 
 
172 LIFE OF MILTON. 
 
 for us lo assert, without the fear of contradic- 
 tion, that there have been ages of simplicity in 
 which the higher members of the social com- 
 bination were husbandmen or shepherds, and 
 in which the manners of rural life have sup- 
 plied the imitation of poetry with some of its 
 most pleasing subjects. From that exquisite 
 composition, the " Song of Solomon/' to the 
 Idyllia of Theocritus, or even perhaps to those 
 of our contemporary, Gesner, the offspring of 
 the pastoral Muse have obtained and gratified 
 readers of the most cultivated taste. This 
 will form in the present instance a complete 
 vindication of Milton; who when he chose to 
 embody his sorrow in the form of a pastoral^ 
 to invoke the powers of song that once warbled 
 in the fields of Sicily, and to trace the steps of 
 Theocritus and of Virgil, could not be aware 
 that he was exposing himself to the sneer of 
 the critic, and to the charge of childish 
 imitation. 
 
 The climate and the manners, if not the 
 language of Britain, oppose its being the scene 
 of pastoral poetry ; and no person can object 
 more strongly than myself to the writer of 
 English bucolics, who must either violate 
 probability by the introduction of classic 
 names and manners, or outrage taste by the 
 exhibition of common and coarse nature, 
 
LIFE OF MILTON. 173 
 
 unallied to the pleasing and the picturesque. 
 But a writer, who can speak the language of 
 the ancients, may certainly invest himself in 
 all their rights; and, lawfully taking posses- 
 sion of their scenery their manners and their 
 poetic truth, may urge with them an indis- 
 putable appeal to the imagination. An 
 eclogue or idyllium, added to those of the 
 Sicilian or the Mantuan bard, would surely 
 not be condemned merely because it was 
 the production of a modern. Alphesiboeus 
 and Daphnis, on their native plains, with 
 their native accents and manners, would be 
 readily acknowledged by every poetic fancy, 
 let their poetic creator be born within the 
 arctic circle or under the line; and, retain- 
 ing in its full extent their power of pleas- 
 ing, they would thus be able to accomplish 
 the prime end of poetry, and consequently 
 to satisfy the just demand of criticism. To 
 brand therefore all pastoral poetry since 
 the days of the ancients, because the pas- 
 toral Muse cannot, for some local reasons, be 
 naturalized in England, argues either great 
 rashness or a very imperfect view of the sub- 
 ject. Milton stands on the ground of Vir- 
 gil and must be absolved or condemned as 
 an ancient writer of bucolics. He certainly 
 requires no pardon on this occasion for any 
 
174 LIFE OF MILTON. 
 
 error, induced by the faulty taste of his age. 
 In the age of Augustus or of George, he 
 might stand at the bar of criticism with the 
 Damon in his hand, and not dread any 
 heavier censure, to counterpoise substan- 
 tial approbation, than what might be in- 
 curred by a few very venial trespasses against 
 the prudery of classical expression. The 
 structure of his hexameters in this poem is, 
 for the most part, of that appropriate kind 
 which is called the bucolic as distinguished 
 from the epic: g his images and sentiments, 
 with exception to those in a very few lines, 
 are through the whole of the composition 
 strictly pastoral; and - he never wanders so 
 far beyond the bounds of bucolic song, or rises 
 so high as Virgil in his Silenus, his Pollio, 
 or perhaps his Gall us. His scene is deter- 
 mined by the names of some places to Bri- 
 tain: but it offends us with no incongruous 
 or unpleasant images, 11 and is made, in fact, 
 
 s When I speak of this distinction, I speak on the authority 
 of Terentianus Maurus, who says that the proper structure of 
 the bucolic verse, observed more by Theocritus than by Virgil, 
 is where the first four feet are not linked by a syllable to the 
 fifth, as " Non j verum ^Egonis; nuper mi hi | tradidit JEgon 3" 
 and not as " Silvestrem tenui Musarn meditaris avena." 
 
 h One slight incongruity occurs in the 41st verse of the 
 poemj and it is remarked in the note on the translation of that 
 passage, p. 18". 
 
LIFE OF MiLTON". 175 
 
 of no consequence to the piece. A shepherd 
 may utter his complaints for the loss of his 
 friend in any country, if he be not stationed 
 under an orange grove where orange groves 
 do not exist, or be made to pass the night in 
 a field where the rigour of the skies would 
 make us feel more for his bodily than for 
 his mental distress. The picture, in short, 
 in this pastoral is consistent, and neither 
 extravagant nor horrid: it will justify there- 
 fore the art and the taste of its author, and 
 be secure of acquittal before any just and in- 
 telligent tribunal. 
 
 1 have said so much on the subject of 
 this poem, that it may probably gratify my 
 readers to have the whole of it laid before 
 them. Its beauties indeed will be only in- 
 distinctly seen in my translation : but to 
 those who are not conversant with the ori- 
 ginal, the inadequate copy may not perhaps 
 be unacceptable. 
 
 EPITAPHIUM DAMONIS. 
 
 Himerides nymphse, (nam vos et Daphnin et Hylan/ 
 Et plorata diu meministis fata Bionis,) 
 
 1 I am afraid that our poet has been guilty in this place of a 
 false quantity. The first syllable of Hylas is unquestionably 
 short. 
 
 His adjungit Hylan nautoe quo fonte relictum 
 Clamassentj ut littus Hyla, Hyla ornne sonaret. 
 
 VIJIG. Eel. vi. 
 
176 LIFE OF MILTON". 
 
 Dicite Sicelicum Thamesina per oppida carmen j 
 Quas miser effudit voces, qure murmura Thyrsis, 
 
 Cui non dictus Hylas puer? ID Geor. iii. 
 
 Ov zsrocny. APOLL. Arg. lib. 1 
 
 Tew pap/y7ttf, c 'TAa, rw r'ay TTAOK^^^X tpogzuvT'osi. 
 
 THEO. Idyl. xiii. 
 
 This, however, was only a slip of Milton's pen: in his seventh 
 elegy the quantity of Hylas is right 
 
 Thiodamantaeus Naiade raptus Hylas. 
 
 But I have an objection, on the ground of taste., to the opening 
 passage of this poem. It presents us with an unwarrantable 
 mixture of fable with truth ; and brings the fictitious or fabulous 
 personages of Dapbnis and Hylas into union with Bion, the pas- 
 toral poet of Smyrna, whose death was lamented in the elegiac 
 strains of Moschus of Syracuse. 
 
 Two rivers of Sicily bore the name of Himera, one of them 
 flowing with a northern course into the Tuscan sea, and the 
 other, which is the largest, with a southern into the Lybian. 
 On the banks of the former of these rivers, near its influx into 
 the sea, stood the city of Himera, in the vicinity of which 
 Gelon, the king of Syracuse, gained a memorable victory over 
 the Carthaginians at the time of the invasion of Greece by 
 Xerxes. I am at a loss to discover why Mr. Warton should call 
 the Himera " the famous bucolic river of Theocritus-" Not 
 ne of this sweet poet's scenes are placed upon this river: it is 
 mentioned only twice (if my recollection be at all accurate) in 
 the thirty idyllia, which have been ascribed to him j and he 
 was a native, as Suidas informs us, according to some accounts, 
 of Coos, or, according to others, of Syracuse, a city no other- 
 wise connected with the Himera than as it is in Sicily. The 
 
LIFE OF MILTON. 177 
 
 Et quibus assiduis exercuit antra querelis, 
 Fluminaque, fontesque vagos, nemorumque recessus; 
 Dum sibi praereptum queritur Damona, neque altam 
 Luctibus exemit noctem, loca sola pererrans. 
 Et jam bis viridi surgebat culmus arista, 
 Et totidem fiavas numerabant horrea messes, 
 Ex quo summa dies tulerat Damona sub umbras 5 
 Nee dum aderat Thyrsis : pastorem scilicet ilium 
 Dulcis amor Musae Thusca retinebat in urbe. 
 Ast ubi mens expleta domum, pecorisque relicti 
 Cura vocat, simul assueta seditque sub ulmo, 
 Turn vero amissum turn denique sentit amicum, 
 Coepit et immensum sic exonerare dolorern. 
 
 Ite domum impasti, domino jam non vacat, agni. 
 Hei mihi! quae terris, quae dicam numina coelo, 
 Postquam te immitt rapuerunt funere, Damon ! 
 Siccine nos linquis? tua sic sine nomine virtus 
 Ibit, et obscuris numero sociabitur umbris? 
 At non ille, animas virga qui dividit aurea, 
 Ista velit, dignumque tui te ducat in agmen, 
 Ignavumque procul pecus arceat omne silentum. 
 
 Ite domum impasti, domino jam non vacat, agni. 
 Gluicquid erit, certe, nisi me lupus ante videbit, 
 Indeplorato non comminuere sepulchre^ 
 Constabitque tuus tibi honos, longumque vigebit, 
 Inter pastores: illi tibi vota secundo 
 Solvere post Daphnin, post Daphnin dicere laudes 
 Gaudebunt, dum rura Pales, dum Faunus amabit : 
 Si quid id est, priscamque fidem coluisse, piumque, 
 Palladiasque artes, sociumque habuisse canorum. 
 
 Ite domum impasti, domino jam non vacat, agni. 
 Haac tibi certa manent, tibi erunt haec praemia, Damon. 
 
 two passages in which this river is named by Theocritus are 
 the following: 
 
 'Ipsga dv^ u$aro$ pefrw y&\&. Idyll, v. 124. 
 
 KO.I tug Spues ayVov eftfqv&y 
 
 'iptfof, airs $VQV?I rfag' o%^^x 7rora k ao7o. Idyl. vii. 74* 
 
 N 
 
178 LIFE OF MILTON. 
 
 At mihi quid tandem fiet modo? quis mihi fidns 
 Haerebit lateri comes, ut tu saepe solebas, 
 Frigoribus duris, et per loca foeta pruinis, 
 Aut rapido sub sole, siti morientibus herbis ? 
 Sive opus in magnos fuit eminus ire leones, 
 Aut avidos terrere lupos praesepibus altis j 
 Quis fando sopire diem, cantuque solebit? 
 
 Ite domum impasti, domino jam non vacat, agni. 
 Pectora cui credam? quis me lenire docebit 
 Mordaces curas ? quis longam fallere noctem 
 Dulcibus alloqniis, grato cum sibilat igni 
 Molle pyrum, et nucibus strepitat focus, et malus Auster 
 Miscet cuncta foris, er desuper intonat ulmo ? 
 
 Ite domum impasti, domino jam non vacat agni. 
 Aut sestate, dies medio dum vertitur axe, 
 Cum Pan aesculea somnum capit abditus umbra, 
 Et repetunt sub aquis sibi nota sedilia nymphae, 
 Pastoresque latent, stertit sub sepe colonus; 
 Quis mihi blanditiasque tuas, quis turn mihi risus, 
 Cecropiosque sales referet, cultosque lepores ? 
 
 Ite domum impasti, domino jam non vacat, agni. 
 At jam solus agros, jam pascua solus oberro 5 
 Sicubi ramosae densantur vallibus umbrae, 
 Hie serum expecto j supra caput imber et Euros 
 Triste sonant, fractasque agitata crepuscula stlvae. 1 
 
 1 The idea in this line is beautifully conceived and expressed. 
 The broken and agitated shadows of the shaking wood are 
 placed in strong representation before our eyes; and we are 
 reminded not only of our author's " chequered shade," but of a 
 fine expansion of the same image in the Task. The reader 
 will thank me perhaps for giving him the entire passage. 
 
 How airy and how light the graceful arch, 
 Yet awful as the consecrated roof 
 Re-echoing pious anthems j while, beneath, 
 The chequer'd earth seems restless, as a flood 
 Brush'd by the wind. So sportive is the light, 
 Shot through the boughs, it dances as they dance, 
 
LIFE OF MILTON. 1?9 
 
 Ite domum impasti, domino jam non vacat, agni. 
 Heu, quam culta mihi prius arva procacibus herbis 
 Involvuntur, et ipsa situ seges alta fatiscit ! 
 Innuba neglecto marcescit et uva racemoj 
 Nee myrteta juvant; ovium quoque taedet, at illae 
 Moerent, inque suum convertunt ora magistrura. 
 
 Ite domum impasti, domino jam non vacat, agni. 
 Tityrus ad corylos vocat, Alphesiboeus ad ornos, 
 Ad salices jEgon, ad flumina pulcher Amyntasj 
 {< Hie geltdi fontes, hie illita gramina musco, 
 " Hie Zephyri, hie placidas interstrepit arbutus undas." 
 Ista canunt surdo, frutiees ego nactus abibam. 
 
 Ite domum impasti, domino jam non vacat, agni. 
 Mopsus ad haec, nam me redeuntem forte notarat, 
 (Et callebat avium m linguas, et sidera Mopsus,) 
 " Thyrsi, quid hoc?" dixit, " quae te coquit improba bilis? 
 " Aut te perdit amor, aut te male fascinat astrum ; 
 " Saturni grave saepe fuit pastoribus astrum, 
 " Intimaque obliquo figit praecordia plumbo." 
 
 Ite domum impasti, domino jam non vacat, agni. 
 Mirantur nymphae, et " quid te, Thyrsi, futurum est ? 
 " Quid tibi vis?" aiuntj " non haec solet esse juvents 
 " Nubila fronSj oculique truces, vultusque severi j 
 * Ilia chores, lususque leves, et semper amorem 
 *' Jure petit : bis ille miser qni serus amavit." 
 
 Ite domum impasti, domino jam non vacat, agni. 
 Venit Hyas, Dryopeque, et filia Baucidis ^Egle, 
 Docta modos citharaeque sciens, sed perdita fastu; 
 Venit Idumanii Chloris vicina fluenti : n 
 
 Shadow and sunshine intermingling quick j 
 And dark'ning and enlight'ning, as the leaves 
 Play wanton, every moment, every spot. 
 
 TASK, Book I. 
 
 m Avium, cannot with any authorised license be contracted 
 into a dissyllable. 
 
 n The river Chelmer in Essex is called Idurmnium fluentum 
 near its influx into Black-water bay. WARTON. 
 
180 LIFE OF MILTON. 
 
 Nil me blanditiae, nil me solantia verba, 
 
 Nil me, si quid adest, movet, aut spes ulla uturi. 
 
 Ite domuin impasti, domino jam not vacat, agni. 
 Hei mihi! quam similes ludunt per prata juvenci, 
 Omnes unanimi secum sibi lege sodales ! 
 Nee magis hunc alio quisquam secernit amicum 
 De grege: sic densi veniunt ad pabula thoes; 
 Inque vicem hirsuti paribus junguntur onagri. 
 Lex eadem pelagi: deserto in littore Proteus 
 Agmina phocarum numerat j vilisque volucrum 
 Passer habet semper quicum sit, et omnia circum 
 Farra libens volitet, sero sua tecta revisensj 
 Quern si sors letho objecit, seu milvus adunco 
 Fata tulit rostro, seu stravit arundine fossor, 
 Protinus ille alium socio petit hide volatu. 
 Nos durum genus, et dins exercita fatis 
 Gens homines, aliena animis, et pectore discors; 
 Vix sibi quisque parem de millibus invenit unum : 
 Aut si sors dederit, tandem non aspera votis, 
 Ilium inopina dies, qua non speraveris hora, 
 Surripit, aeternum linquens in saecula damnum. 
 
 Ite domum impasli, domino jam non vacat, agni. 
 Heu quis me ignotas traxit vagus error in oras, 
 Ire per ae'reas rupes Alpemque nivosam ! 
 Ecquid erat tanti Romam vidisse sepultam, 
 (Quamvis ilia foret, qualem dum viseret olim,? 
 Tityrus ipse suas et oves et rura reliquit,) 
 Ut te tarn dulci possem caruisse sodale ! 
 
 Doctor Pan' has suggested to me, (and his suggestions on 
 subjects of philological disquisition are always of moment) that 
 " futurum," without an adjunct, never means future time, but a 
 future event j and that Milton in this place is consequently wrong 
 m his latinity. 
 
 P The allusion is to the first eclogue of Virgil, in which the 
 poet describes himself, under the name of Tityrus, as allured 
 from his farm and native Mantua by the beauty and grandeur 
 of Rome. 
 
LIFE OF MILTON. 181 
 
 Possem tot maria alta, tot interponere montes, 
 Tot silvas, tot saxa tibi, fluviosque sonantes! 
 Ah certe extremum licuisset tangere dextram, 
 Et bene compositos placidc.morientis ocellos, 
 Et dixisse, " Vale, nostri memor ibis ad astia." 
 
 Ite domum impasti, domino jam non vacat, agni. 
 Quamquam etiam vestri nunquam meminisse pigebit, 
 Pastores Thusci, Musis operata juventusj 
 Hie Charis, atque Leposj et Thuscus tu quoque Damon, 
 Antiqua genus unde petis Lucumonis ab urbe. 
 O ego quantus eram, gelidi cum stratus ad Ami 
 Murmura, populeumque nemus qu& mollior herba, 
 Carpere nunc violas, nunc summas carpere myrtos, 
 Et potui Lycidae certantem audire Menalcam! 
 Ipse etiam ten tare ausus sum; nee, puto, multum 
 Displicui; nam sunt et apud me munera vestra, 
 Fiscellae, calathique, et cerea vinela cicutae. 
 Quin et nostra suas docuerunt nomina fagos 
 Et Datis, et Francinus, erant et vocibus ambo^ 
 Et stndiis noti, Lydorum sanguinis ambo. 
 
 Ite domum impasti, domino jam non vacat, agni. 
 Haec mihi turn laeto dictabat roscida luna, 
 Dum solus teneros claudebam cratibus hoedos. 
 Ah quoties dixi, cum te cinis ater habebat, 
 Nunc canit, aut lepori nunc tendit retia Damon, 
 Vimina nunc texit, varies sibi quod sit in usus! 
 Et quae turn facili sperabam mente futura 
 Arripui voto levis, et praesentia finxi: 
 " Heus bone! numquid agis? nisi te quid forte retardat, 
 " Imus? et arguta paulum recumbamus in nmbra, 
 " Aut ad aquas Colni, aut ubi jugera Cassibelauni? r 
 
 ^ Of Carlo Dati and Antonio Francini, two of our author's 
 warm friends and panegyrists at Florence, we have spoken in 
 the preceding part of our narrative. The Lydian origin of the 
 Tuscans is known to every reader of Horace, without any re- 
 ference to more recondite authorities. 
 
 r The Colne is a river of Buckinghamshire which flows near 
 H orton, the residence of Milton'i father. The town of Coin- 
 
182 LIFE OF MILTON. 
 
 " Tu mihi percurres medicos, tua gramma, succos, 
 ef Helleborumque, humilesque crocos, foliumque hyacinth!, 
 fe Quasque habet ista palus herbas, artesque medentum/' 
 Ah pereant herbae, pereant artesque medentum, 
 Gramina; postquam ipsi nil profecere magistro! 
 Ipse etiam, nam nescio quid mihi grande sonabat 
 Fistula, ab undecima jam lux est altera nocte, 
 Et turn forte novis admoram labra cicutis j 
 Dissiluere tamen rupta compage, nee ultra 
 Ferre graves potuere sonos: dubito quoque ne sim 
 Turgidulus, tamen et referam; vos cedite, silvae. 
 
 Ite doroum impasti, domino jam non vacat, agni. 
 Ipse ego Dardanias Rutupina per aequora puppes s 
 Dicam, et Pandrasidos regnum vetus Inogeniae, 
 Brennumque Arviragumque duces, priscumque Belinum, 
 Et tandem Arraoricos Britonum sub lege colonos: 
 Turn gravidam Arturo, fatali fraude, logcrnen,' 
 Mendaces vultus, assumptaque Gorlois arma, 
 
 brook derives its name from this river, or rather rivulet. By 
 Cassibelauni jugera we are to understand, as Mr. Warton in- 
 forms me, Verulam, or St. Albans. 
 
 s In the fabulous history of Britain, Brutus, the grandson of 
 JEneas, leads a colony of Trojans to this island, which he con- 
 quers and civilizes. He had previously married Inogen, the 
 daughter of some Grecian king, called Pandrasus. Rutupium 
 is Richborough on the coast of Kent. Armorica (or Bretagne) 
 in France was conquered and occupied by the Britons, at the 
 time, as it is generally supposed, when they were pressed by the 
 Saxons. But we have no accounts of this emigration and conquest: 
 and many ascribe the first British settlements in Armorica to the 
 soldiers who followed Maximus from our Island; and who, after 
 the defeat of their leader by Theodosius, in the 388th year of the 
 Christian acra, established themselves in this maritime province of 
 Gaul; where their numbers were increased by seccessive emigra- 
 tions of their countrymen at different periods and under the im- 
 pulse of various motives. 
 
 1 Uther Pendragon, being changed by the magic of Merlin into 
 the likeness of Gorlois, prince of Cornwall, got possession of his 
 wife, logerne's bed ; and Arthur was the offspring of the trespass. 
 
LIFE OF MILTON. 183 
 
 Merlini dolus. O mihi turn si vita supersit, 
 Tu procul annosa pendebis, fistula, pinu, 
 Multum oblita mihi ; aut, patriis mutata Camoenis, 
 Brittonicum strides: quid enim? omnia non licet uni, 
 Non sperasse uni licet omnia, mi satis ampla 
 Merces, et mihi grande decus, (sim ignotus in aevum 
 Turn licet, externo penitusque inglorius orbi,) 
 Si me flava comas legat Usa, u et potor Alauni, 
 Vorticibusque frequens Abra, et nemus omne Treantse, 
 Et Thamesis meus ante omnes, et fusca metallis 
 Tamara, et extremis me discant Orcades undis. 
 
 Jte domum impasti, domino jam non vacat, agni. 
 Haec tibi servabam lenta. sub cortice lauri, 
 Haec, et plura simul : turn quae mihi pocula Mansus, 
 (Mansus Chalcidicae non ultima gloria ripae, x ) 
 Bina dedit, mirum artis opus, mirandus et ipse, 
 Et circum gemino cselaverat argumento: 
 In medio, rubri maris unda et odoriferum ver, 
 Littora longa Arabum et sudantes balsama silvae: 
 Has inter Phoenix, divina av 7 is, unica terris, 
 
 u Usa, according to Camden, is the Ouse in Buckinghamshire. 
 Alaunus is probably the Alan in Cornwall. Abra is a name which 
 has been given to the Tweed, the Severn, and the Humber. 
 With Milton, in this place, it designates perhaps the last of these 
 i ivers, though the proper name, as it is found in Ptolemy, for the 
 astuary, which is now called the Humber, is Abus. TheTamar, 
 a Cornish river, is discoloured by running through metallic strata. 
 Thule, a name which receded with the extension of the Roman 
 geography farther to the north and was latterly given to Iceland, is 
 here assigned to the Orkneys, the northern extremity of the limits 
 pi oposed by the poet to his fame, as the Tamar forms the southern. 
 
 x Our readers can require no additional information, in this 
 place, respecting. Manso, the amiable and literary Marquis of 
 Villa. A colony of Greeks, partly from Cumss in JEolia and 
 partly from Chalcis in Euboja, settled on the Coasts of Campania, 
 where they built Cumae and Neapolis. From this circumstance 
 the country of Naples called Chalcidian and, by Virgil, Euboean. 
 
184 LIFE OF MILTON. 
 
 Casruleum fulgens diversicoloribus alls, 
 
 Auroram vitreis surgentem respicit undis. 
 
 Parte alia, polus omnipatens et magnus Olympus : 
 
 Q,uis putet? hie quoque Amor, pictaeque in nube pharetrae, 
 
 Arma corusca faces, et spicula tincta pyropo : 
 
 Nee tenues animas, pectusque ignobile vulgi, 
 
 Hincferitj at, circum flamraantia lumina torquens, 
 
 Semper in erectum spargit sua tela per orbes 
 
 Impiger, et pronos nunquam collimat ad ictus: 
 
 Hinc mentes ardere sacrae, formaeque deorum. 
 
 Tu quoque in his, nee me fallit spes lubrica, Damon; 
 Tu quoque in his certe es, nam quo tua dulcis abiret 
 Sanctaque simplicitas, nam quo tua Candida virtus' 
 Nee te Lethaeo fas quaesivisse sub orco : 
 Nee tibi conveniunt lacrymae, nee flebimus ultra; 
 Ite procul, lacrymae ; purum colit aethera Damon, 
 jEthera purus habet, pluvium pede reppulit arcumj 
 Heroumque animas inter, divosque perennes, 
 JEthereos haurit latices, et gaudia potat 
 Ore sacro. Quin tu, coeli post jura recepta, 
 Dexter ades, placidusque fave quicunque vocaris, 
 Seu tu noster eris Damon, sive aequior auUis 
 y Diodotus, quo te divino nomine cuncti 
 Ccelicolae norint, silvisque vocabere Damon. 
 Quod tibi purpureus pudor, et sine labe juventus* 
 Grata fuit, quod nulla tori libata voluptas, 
 En etiam tibi virginei servantur honores : 
 Ipse caput nitidum cinctus rutilante corona, 
 
 >' For the accommodation of his verse, the poet has in this 
 place happily translated the name of his friend Deodati into 
 Greek. But Milton was fond of these versions of a name, 
 which was so susceptible of translation. In each of the two 
 familiar letters to his friend, which are extant, he calls him 
 Theodotus. 
 
 z Deodati died unmarried, and, in this respect, resembled 
 Mr. King, the Lycidas of Milton's Muse. Some of the thoughts 
 in the conclusion of this poem are easily discoverable in the 
 Lycidas. 
 
XIFE OF MILTON. 185 
 
 Laetaque frondentis gestans umbracula palmae, 
 ^Eternum perages immortales hymenaeos; 
 Cantus ubi choreisque furit lyra mista beatis, 
 Festa Sionaeo bacchantur et Orgia thyrso. 
 
 DAMON. 
 
 AN EPITAPHIAL ELEGY. a 
 
 Ye Nymphs of Himera, (whose stream along 
 i he notes have floated of your mournful song, 
 
 a Dr. Langhorne, whose elegant and polished, though not very 
 powerful Muse has obtained perhaps less regard than she might 
 rightfully claim, has translated a part of this pastoral : but I was 
 unacquainted with his version till I had completed my own/* 
 
 The fate of Dr. Langhorne, as a poet, has been peculiarly and 
 curiously unhappy; for he has been neglected by the public, and 
 has experienced attention from Mr. Hayley. The imperfect trans- 
 lation in question is one of the least fortunate of its author's poetic 
 efforts: but when it is to be prostrated before Mr. Covvper's ver- 
 sion of the same poem, it is raised into fictitious consequence by 
 Mr. Hayley, and selected for the object of his warm praise. f By 
 this praise however, from the admirer and panegyrist of poor 
 Percival Stockdale, Dr. Langhorne, if he could be sensible of it, 
 would not probably be much gratified, or feel his vanity immo- 
 derately inflamed. 
 
 It was remarked by one of the public critics, (in the Monthly 
 Review for March 1800,) that my version * of the, Ite domum im- 
 pasti, domino jam non vacat, agni, which may be called the 
 burden of the pastoral, was unsuccessful, and injurious to the 
 poetry with which it was associated. As I believe the critic's 
 judgment in this instance to be right ; and as I am certain that the 
 frequent recurrence of the same couplet, however happily formed, 
 must produce with its monotonous interruption an effect which 
 
 * Return unfed, my lambs, by fortune crost, 
 
 Your hapless master, now to you is lost, 
 f See Cowper's " Translations of Milton's Latin and Italian 
 poetry." 
 
 
186 LIFE OF MILTOtf. 
 
 As Daphnis or as Hylas you deplored, 
 
 Or Bion, once the shepherd's tuneful lord;) 
 
 Lend your Sicilian softness to proclaim 
 
 The woes of Thyrsis on the banks of Thame: 
 
 What plaints he mnrmur'd to the springs and floods, 
 
 How waked the sorrowing echoes of the woods,, 
 
 As frantic for his Damon lost,, alone 
 
 He roam'd, and taught the sleepless night to groan. 
 
 Twice the gree.n blade had bristled on the plain, 
 And twice the golden ear enrich'd the swain, 
 Since Damon, by a doom too strict, expired, 
 And hi.s pale eye his absent friend required : 
 For Thyrsis still his wish'd return delay d; 
 The Muses held hiin in the Tuscan shade. 
 But when, with satiate taste and careful thought, 
 His long forgotten home and flock he sought, 
 Ah ! then, beneath the accustom'd elm reclined, 
 All all his loss came rushing on his mind. 
 Undone and desolate, for transient ease 
 He pour'd his swelling heart in strains like these. 
 
 Back to your fold, my lambs, unfed repair : 
 
 My care of you is lost in deeper care. 
 
 is far from good, and which will not in fact allow the lines to 
 be recited more than once or twice in the whole poem, I have 
 varied my translation of the repeated line, and have thus, by al- 
 ways offering the same thought with a change of diction, not only 
 made what before fatigued with its cuckoo note subservient to 
 the variety of the piece, but have adhered, in my own opinion at 
 least, more faithfully to Nature ; who, when she suggested at in- 
 tervals to the mourning shepherd the same melancholy sentiment, 
 would not be apt to suggest it, with t'oo much artifice and accu- 
 rate recollection for the disorder of grief, in precisely the same 
 formal expression. Whether by following on this occasion the 
 dictate of my own feeling I have deviated from that of true taste, 
 or whether, by taking such a liberty with my author, I have been 
 guilty of any actual offence, must be submitted to the decision of 
 my readers. 
 
LIFE OI 1 MILTON. 18? 
 
 What powers shall I of earth or heaven invoke, 
 Since Damon fell by their relentless stroke? 
 And slialt thou leave us thus? and shall thy worth 
 Sleep in a nameless grave with common earth? 
 But he, b whose wand the realms of death controlls, 
 Forbids thy shade to blend with common souls. 
 While these, o'erawed, disperse at his command, 
 He leads thee to thy own distinguished band. 
 
 To your sad fold, my lambs, return unfed: 
 
 Your shepherd now to all but grief is dead. 
 And sure, unless beneath some evil eye, 
 That blights me with its glance, my powers should die, 
 Thou shah not slumber on thy timeless bier 
 " Without the meed of one melodious tear." 
 Long shall thy name, thy virtues long remain 
 In fond memorial with the shepherd train : 
 Their festive honours, and their votive lay 
 To thee, as to their Daphnis, they shall pay: 
 Their Daphnis thou, as long as Pales loves 
 The springing meads, or Faunus haunts the groves, 
 If aught of power on faith and truth attend, 
 Palladian science, and a Muse thy friend. 
 
 Return unfed, my lambs! nor longer stand 
 
 In fond expectance of my tending hand. 
 Yes, Damon, thee such recompenses wait. 
 But, ah! what ills hang gloomy o'er my fate! 
 Who now, still faithful to my side, will bear 
 Keen frosts, or suns that parch the sick'ning air? 
 When c boldly, to protect the distant fold, 
 We seek the growling savage in his hold, 
 
 b Mercury. 
 
 In my translation of this passage, I have shown myself de- 
 sirous of keeping the lions of the original rather in the back 
 ground. In a British scene, they certainly appear to be out of 
 their proper place; though their names may be here introduced 
 only to express some dangerous and difficult exploit. My first 
 translation of these lines differed from the present; and for 
 what I had then written, Mr. Gifford offered to me some verses, 
 
188 LIFE OF MILTON. 
 
 Who now, as we retrace the long rough way, 
 With tale or song will soothe the weary day? 
 Return unfed, my lambs ! you once were dear : 
 But now I slight you for a care more near. 
 To whom my bosom shall I now confide? 
 At whose soft voice will now my cares subside? 
 Who now will cheat the night with harmless mirth, 
 As the nut crackles on the glowins hearth, 
 Or the pear hisses; while without the storm 
 Roars through the wood, and ruffles nature's form ? 
 Home to your fold, my lambs! unfed depart! 
 You cannot touch when sorrow wrings the heart! 
 In summer too, at noontide's sultry hour, 
 When Pan lies sleeping in his beechen bower j 
 When, diving from the day's oppressive heat, 
 The panting naiad seeks her crystal seatj 
 When every shepherd leaves the silent plain, 
 And the green hedge protects the snoring swain j 
 Whose playful fancy then shall light the smile ? 
 Whose attic tongue relieve my languid toil? 
 Go, lambs, unfed ! no more my care confest: 
 Grief will not bear a partner in my breast. 
 Ah! now through meads and vales alone I stray, 
 Or linger sad where woods embrown the day; 
 As drives the storm, and Eurus o'er my head 
 Breaks the loose twilight of the billowy shade. 
 Return unfed, my lambs ! a shepherd's care 
 You ask in vain from him who feels despair. 
 
 which are too good for me to appropriate to myself or to with- 
 hold from my readers. The first of these lines is my own j the 
 others are Mr. GirTord's. 
 
 " Who now with me, tried partner of my toil," 
 
 Will brave the chilling sky, and frost-bound soil? 
 
 Or when the sun with fiercer glory reigns, 
 
 And nature faints along the thirsty plains j 
 
 Dauntless, like thee, the prowling lion facej 
 
 And from the fold the gaunt hyaena chase ? 
 
LIFE OF MILTON. 18? 
 
 My late trim fields their labour'd culture scorn; 
 And idle weeds insult my drooping corn. 
 My widow'd vine, in prone dishonour, sees 
 Her clusters wither j not a shrub can please. 
 E'en my sheep tire me : they with upward eyes 
 Gaze at my grief ; and seem to feel my sighs. 
 Hence home, my lambs, unfed! the day is done: 
 Once you had all my care, and now have none. 
 My shepherd-friends, by various tastes inclined, 
 Direct my steps the sweetest spot to find. 
 This likes the hazel, that the beechen grove: 
 One bids me here, one there for pleasure rove. 
 ^Egon the willow's pensile shade delights; 
 And gay Amyntas to the streams invites: 
 " Here are cool fountains: here is mossy grass: 
 " Here zephyrs softly whisper as they pass: 
 rt From this bright spring yon arbute draws her green, 
 " The pride and beauty of the sylvan scene." 
 Deaf is my woej and, while they speak in vain, 
 I plunge into the copse, and hide my pain. 
 
 Go, lambs, unfed! no more I mind your weal: 
 My own sad doom is all I now can feel. 
 Mopsus surprised me in my sullen mood, 
 (Mopsus who knew the language of the wood; 
 Knew all the stars, could all their junctions spell,) 
 And thus, " What passions in your bosom swell? 
 " Speak! flows the poison from disastrous love? 
 " Or falls the mischief star-sent from above : 
 " For leaden Saturn, with his chill control!, 
 " Oft has shot blights into the shepherd's soul." 
 Return, my lambs! nor hope your wonted food 
 From me, now wrapt in sorrow's gloomy mood. 
 The, wond'ring nymphs exclaim, " What, Tbyrsis, now? 
 " Those heavy eyelids, and that cloudy brow 
 " Become not youth : to youth the jocund song, 
 " Frolic, and dance, and wanton wiles belong : 
 <f With these he courts the joys which suit his state: 
 " Ah! twice unhappy he, who loves too late!'' 
 
190 LIFE OF MILTON. 
 
 Return, my lambs, unfed! nor here implore 
 Your shepherd's care that lives for you no more. 
 With Dryope and Hyas, ^Egle came, 
 A lovely lyrist, but a scornful dame. 
 From Chelmer's banks fair Chloris join'd the train. 
 But vain their blandishments, their solace vain. 
 Dead is my hope, and pointless beauty's dart 
 To waken torpid pleasure in my heart. 
 
 Return, my lambs, unfed! you hope in vain 
 To find attention in the breast of pain. 
 How blest, where, none repulsed and none preferr'd, 
 One common friendship blends the lowing herd! 
 Touch'd by no subtle magnet in the mind, 
 Each meets a comrade when he meets his kind. 
 Conspiring wolves enjoy this equal love, 
 And this the zebra's party-coloured drove: 
 This too the tribes of ocean, and the flock 
 Which Proteus feeds beneath his vaulted rock. 
 The sparrow, fearless of a lonely slate, 
 Has ever for his social wing a mate : 
 Whom should the falcon or the marksman strike, 
 He soon repairs his loss, and finds a like. 
 But we, by fate's severer frown oppress'd, 
 With war and sharp repulsion in the breast, 
 Can scarcely meet, amid the human throng, 
 One kindred soul, or, met, preserve him long. 
 When fortune, now determined to be kind, 
 Yields the rich gift, and mind is link'd to mind, 
 Death mocks the fond possession, bursts the chain, 
 And plants the bosom with perennial pain. 
 Unheeded and unfed, my lambs, return : 
 Your hapless master now can only mourn. 
 Alas, what madness tempted me to stray 
 Where other suns on distant regions play? 
 To tread aerial paths and Alpine snows, 
 Scared by stern nature's terrible repose? 
 Ah ! could the sepulchre of buried Rome 
 Thus urge my frantic foot to spurn my home? 
 
LIFE OF MILTON. 191 
 
 Though Rome were now, as once in pomp array'd 
 She drew the Mantuan from his flock and shade j 
 Ah! could she lure me from thy faithful side; 
 Lead me where rocks would part us, floods divide j 
 Forests and lofty mountains intervene; 
 Whole realms extend, and oceans roar between ? 
 Ah, wretch ! denied to press thy. fainting hand, 
 Close thy dim eyes, and catch thy last command; 
 To say, " My friend, O think of all our love, 
 " And bear it glowing to the realms above." 
 
 Go! go, my lambs! unfed I bid you go: 
 
 Unjust to you as faithful to my woe. 
 
 Yet must I not deplore the hours that flew, -\ 
 
 Ye Tuscan swains, with science and with you: L 
 
 Each Grace and Muse is yours, and yours my Damon too. J 
 From ancient Lucca's Tuscan walls he came, 
 With you in country, talents, arts the same. 
 How happy, lull'd by Arno's warbling stream, 
 Hid by his poplars from day's flaring beam, 
 When stretch'd along the fragrant moss I lay, 
 And cull'd the violet or pluck'd the bayj 
 Or heard, contending for the rural prize, 
 Famed Lycid's and Menalcas' melodies. 
 I too essay 'd to sing: nor vainly sung: 
 This flute, these baskets speak my victor tongue: 
 And Datis and Francinus, swains who trace 
 Their Tuscan lineage to the Lydian race, 
 Dear to the Muses both, with friendly care 
 Taught their carved trees my favour'd name to bear. 
 
 Return, my lambs, without your daily due : 
 
 Lost to myself, I now am lost to you. 
 Then, as the moonbeam slumber'd on the plain, 
 I penn'd my fold, and sung in cheerful strain : 
 And oft exclaim'd, unconscious of my doom, 
 As your pale ashes moulder'd in the tomb, 
 " Now Damon chants his lay: he now prepares 
 " His twisted osiers, or his wiry snares." 
 Then would rash fancy on the future seize, 
 And hail you present in such words as these: 
 
192 LIFE OF MILTON. 
 
 " What loitering here? unless some cause dissuade, 
 
 " Haste and enjoy with me the whispering shade j 
 
 " Or where his course the lucid Colnus bends ; 
 
 " Or where Cassibelan's domain extends. 
 
 " There show what herbs in vale or upland grow 5 
 
 ft The harebell's ringlet, and the saffron's glow: 
 
 " There teach me all the physic of the plains, 
 
 " What healing virtues swell the floret's veins." 
 
 Ah ! perish all the healing plants, confest 
 
 Too weak to save the swain who knew them best! 
 
 As late a new-compacted pipe I found, 
 
 It gave beneath my lips a loftier sound : 
 
 Too high indeed the notes, for as it spoke, 
 
 The waxen junctures in the labour broke. 
 
 Smile as you may, I will not hide from you 
 
 The ambitious strain : ye woods, awhile adieu ! 
 
 Hence ! home my lambs, unfed ! more powerful cares 
 Usurp my thought, and make it wholly theirs. 
 High on Rutupium's cliffs, my Muse shall hail 
 The first white gleamings of the Dardan sail: 
 Shall sing the realms by Inogen controll'd, 
 And Brennus, Arvirage, and Belin old : 
 Shall sing Armorica, at length subdued 
 By British steel in Gallic blood imbrued : 
 And Uther in the form of Gorlois led, 
 By Merlin's fraud, to logerne's bed} 
 Whence Arthur sprang. If length of days be mine, 
 My shepherd's pipe shall hang on yon old pine 
 In long neglect} or, tuned to British strains, 
 With British airs shall please my native swains. 
 But wherefore so? alas! no human mind 
 Can hope for audience all the human kind. 
 Enough for me/ 1 I ask no more renown, 
 (Lost to the world, to Britain only known.) 
 
 d He expresses the same generous and patriotic sentiment in 
 one of his prose tracts. " For which cause, and not only for 
 that I knew it would be hard to arrive at the second rank 
 among the Latins, I applied myself to that resolution, which 
 

 LIFE OF MILTON. 195 
 
 If yellow- tressed Usa read my lays; 
 
 Alan and gulfy Humber sound my praise; 
 
 Trent's sylvan echoes answer to my song ; 
 
 My own dear Thames my warbled notes prolong; 
 
 Ore-tinctured Tamar own me for her bard; 
 
 And Thule, 'mid her utmost flood, regard. 
 
 Hence ! lambs ! nor wait for care I cannot give : 
 
 Ah! now for grief, and grief alone I live. 
 These lays, and more like these for thee design'd, 
 I wrote and folded in a laurel's rind. 
 For thee 1 also kept, of antique mould, 
 Two spacious goblets, rough with laboured gold. 
 (Rare was the gift, but yet the giver more, 
 Mansus, the pride of the Chalcidian shore.) 
 In bold existence from the workman's hand, 
 Two subjects on their fretted surface stand. 
 Here by the red-sea coast in length displaj'd, 
 Arabia pants beneath her odorous shade : 
 And here the Phoenix from his spicy throne, 
 In heavenly plumage radiant and alone, 
 
 Ariosto followed, against the persuasions of Bembo, to fix all 
 the industry and art, I could unite, to the adorning of my native 
 tongue; not to make verbal curiosities the end, (that were a 
 toilsome vanity,) but to be an interpreter and relater of the best 
 and sagest things among mine own citizens throughout this 
 island in the mother dialect. That what the greatest and 
 choicest wits of Athens, Rome, or modern Italy, and those He- 
 brews of old did for their country, I in my proportion, with 
 this over and above of being a Christian, might do for mine; 
 not caring to be once named abroad, though perhaps I could 
 attain to that, but content with these British islands as my 
 world ; whose fortune hath hitherto been, that if the Athe- 
 nians, as some say, made their small deeds great and renowned 
 by their eloquent writers, England hath had her noble achieve- 
 ments made small by the unskilful handling of monks and me- 
 chanics." P. W. i, 11 9. 
 
194 LIFE OF MILTON. 
 
 Himself a kind, beholds with flamy sight 
 The wave first kindle with the morning light. 
 There, on another side, the heavens unfold, 
 And great Olympus shines in brighter gold. 
 Strange though it seem, conspicuous in the scene, 
 The God of love displays his infant mien: 
 Dazzling his arms, his quiver, torch, and bow; 
 His brilliant shafts with points of topaz glow. 
 With these he meditates no common wound: 
 But proudly throws a fiery glance around \ 
 And, scorning vulgar aims, directs on high 
 His war against the people of the sky : 
 Thence, struck with sacred flame, the etherial race 
 Rush to new joys, and heavenly minds embrace. 
 
 With these is Damon now my hope is sure- 
 Yes! with the just, the holy, and the pure 
 My Damon dwelfs : 'twere impious to surmise 
 Virtues like his could rest below the skies. 
 Then cease our tears: from his superior seat, 
 He sees the showery arch beneath his feet j 
 And, mix'd with heroes and with gods above, 
 Quaffs endless draughts of life, and joy, and love. 
 But thou, when fix'd on thy empyreal throne, 
 When heaven's eternal rights are all thy own, 
 O! still attend us from thy starry sphere 5 
 Still as we call thee by thy name most dear! 
 Diodotus above but yet our Damon here. 
 As thine was roseate purity that fled, 
 In youth abstemious, from the nuptial bed, 
 Thy virgin triumph heavenly spousals wait: 
 Lo! where it leads along its festal state! 
 A crown of living lustre binds thy browj 
 Thy hand sustains the palm's immortal bough: 
 While the full song, the dance, the frantic lyre, 
 And Sion's thyrsus, wildly waved, conspire 
 To solemnize the rites, and boundless joys inspire. 
 
LIFE OF MILTON. 195 
 
 One passage in this poem is of peculiar 
 importance, as it shows its author to be re- 
 solute in his intentions respecting epic com- 
 position, and determined to consecrate his 
 Muse to the entertainment and the fame 
 of his country. Arthur and the heroes of 
 British fable were still the favourites of his 
 poetic contemplation. But Arthur, having 
 been vainly promised the lofty song of Dry- 
 den, was reserved for the mortal Muse of 
 Blackmore; and a subject was to be chosen 
 by Milton which was better adapted to the 
 sublime enthusiasm of his soul, and of a far 
 more elevated, if not of a more interesting 
 nature. The idea, as we have observed, of 
 some great epic work was early conceived 
 by him., and he cherished it amid the hoarse 
 confusion of his subsequent occupations. In 
 the turbulent scenes in w^hich he is now im- 
 mediately to be engaged we find him la- 
 menting that he was violently drawn from 
 the bias of his genius to " a manner of writ- 
 ing, wherein he knew himself to be inferior 
 to himself, led by the genial power of nature 
 to another task, and wherein he had the use, 
 as he might account, only of his left e hand;" 
 and we hear him complaining that he was 
 
 c Reasons of C, Govern. P. \V. i. 118, 
 
196 LIFE OF MILTON. 
 
 forced " to interrupt the pursuit of his hopes ; 
 and to leave a calm and pleasing solitariness, 
 fed with cheerful and confident thoughts, to 
 embark on a troubled sea of noises and hoarse 
 disputes, from beholding the bright counte- 
 nance of truth in the quiet and still air of 
 delightful studies/' f We see him however, 
 under the oppression of all this cheerless and 
 foreign matter, indulging in the dear " hope 
 of having them" (his poetic studies, and his 
 poetic audience) " again in a still time when 
 there shall be no chiding/' g 
 
 Milton was a student and a poet by the 
 strong and almost irresistible impulse of his 
 nature: he was a polemic only on the rigid 
 requisition of duty, and in violation of all 
 his more benign and refined propensities. 
 " Surely/' *he says, " to every good and 
 peaceable man it must in nature be a hate- 
 ful thing to be the displeaser and molester 
 of thousands: much better would it like him, 
 doubtless, to be the messenger of gladness 
 and contentment, which is his chief intended 
 business, to all mankind, but that they resist 
 and oppose their own true happiness. But 
 when God commands to take the trumpet 
 
 f Reas. of Church Gov. P. W. i. 123. 
 e Apol. for Smect. P. W. i. 225. 
 
LIFE OF MILTON;. 197 
 
 and blow a dolorous or a jarring blast, it lies 
 not in man's will what he shall say or what 
 he shall conceal/" 1 
 
 Milton plunged into controversy with 
 the desperate resolution of a man who is 
 " settled and has bent up 
 
 " Each corporal agent to the terrible feat:" 
 
 but he returns to his own proper inclination 
 with the elasticity of a bow on the rupture 
 of its string. His descent, if descent it may 
 be called, was " with compulsion and la- 
 borious flight;" but we behold him, after 
 a long immersion in the pool of discord, 
 " springing upward like a pyramid of fire;" 
 and showing us " that in his proper motion 
 he ascends." 
 
 But have we, after all, any just reason 
 to lament this temporary defection of our 
 great poet from his more pleasing and con- 
 genial studies? I hesitate in my answer; and, 
 were I to obey the rigour of my judgment 
 rather than to attend to the suggestions of 
 my taste, I should be disposed to determine 
 that we have not. By the appropriation of 
 his powers to controversy, during the high 
 noon of his manhood, we have lost, as we 
 
 h R. of Church G. P.W. i. 115. 
 
LIFE OF MILTON. 
 
 may be certain, many a rich effusion of 
 fancy on which we might have dwelt with 
 exquisite delight: but we have gained by it 
 the spectacle of a magnificent mind in a new 
 course of action, throwing its roaring fulness 
 over a strange country, and surprising us with 
 the force and the flexibility of the human in* 
 tellect. We are presented by it also with 
 the affecting exhibition of very extraordi- 
 nary magnanimity and self-devotion ; and 
 we may perhaps number the political writ- 
 ings of Milton, how erroneous soever and 
 incompatible with the present system and 
 happiness of Britain may be their principles, 
 among that mass of incongruous materials 
 and events, from the collision and conflict 
 of which have arisen the beauty, the har- 
 mony, the vigour and the self-balanced inte- 
 grity of the English constitution. 
 
 On his arrival in England, preferring the 
 busy scene of the capital as better suited to 
 his present views than the retirement of his 
 father's country seat, he hired lodgings in 
 St. Bride's church-yard, and consented to 
 receive as his pupils his two nephews, Ed- 
 ward and John Philips. By this measure, 
 and by his subsequent assent to the impor- 
 tunity of some of his most intimate friends 
 to allow their sons also the benefit of his 
 
J.IFE OF MILTON. 199 
 
 instruction, he has exposed himself to the 
 title of schoolmaster, which his enemies, who 
 employed it as a reproach, conceived to be of 
 a nature to degrade him. Whether he re- 
 ceived money from his pupils cannot now be 
 certainly known; but, while the universality 
 of the practice and the acknowledged narrow- 
 ness of his income might induce the belief 
 that he did, that singular disinterestedness, 
 stamped on every action of his life, and that 
 enthusiastic desire of communicating know- 
 ledge, which could induce him when co- 
 vered with literary glory to publish an acci- 
 dence for the instruction of children, would 
 urge us to entertain the contrary opinion, 
 and to conclude that he made a gratuitous 
 communication of the treasures of his mind. 
 This was the report l in the time of Rich- 
 ardson ; and a mere feather thrown into this 
 scale must infallibly, as I think, give it the 
 preponderance. Let us hear what he says 
 on the subject of converting his learning 
 and talents into the means of pecuniary pro- 
 fit, and then let us reject a report, so per- 
 fectly in harmony with his sentiments, if we 
 can. " Do they think that all these meaner 
 and superfluous things come from God, and 
 
 ' Rich. Remarks on Milton, &rc. p. Ixxi. 
 
200 LIFE OF MILTON. 
 
 the divine gift of learning from the den of 
 Plulus or the cave of Mammon? Certainly 
 never any clear spirit, nursed up in brighter 
 influences, with a soul enlarged to the di- 
 mensions of spacious art and high know- 
 ledge, ever entered there but with scorn, 
 and thought it ever foul disdain to make pelf 
 or ambition the reward of his studies; it be- 
 ing the greatest honour, the greatest fruit 
 and proficiency of learned studies to despise 
 these things/' k 
 
 Let this point however be determined at 
 the reader's pleasure. Milton in his little 
 circle of scholars was usefully, if not splen- 
 didly engaged ; and he could not perhaps 
 conceive, while he was essentially promoting 
 the highest interests of some of his species, 
 that he was degrading himself in the estima- 
 tion of the rest. In his conduct to his pupils, 
 as we are informed by Aubrey, severity was 
 happily blended with kindness: he was fa- 
 miliar and free where he could be; distant, 
 and rigid where he was compelled to be. His 
 plan of instruction was formed on a peculiar, 
 and, in my judgment, an erroneous principle. 
 It respected things more than words, and 
 attempted to communicate knowledge when 
 
 k Animad. upon the Remons. Def. P. W. i. 194. 
 
LIFE OF MILTON. 201 
 
 the understanding was perhaps incapable of 
 receiving more than the key which opened 
 the important gate. 
 
 Many able men, offended at the number 
 of years devoted by our public schools to 
 the attainment of language, have indulged 
 in some similar speculations, and have en- 
 deavoured to crowd the immature and grow- 
 ing mind with a variety of intellectual food, 
 adapted to oppress rather than to nourish it. 
 But the success of these philanthropic pro- 
 jectors has been very partial, and calculated 
 on the whole to attest the wisdom of our 
 established system; which, instilling into the 
 boy the first principles of religion and, with 
 them, the sanctions and the objects of moral 
 duty, contents itself with cultivating the at- 
 tention and the taste of its pupil, and with 
 giving him the means of access to the know- 
 ledge of his riper years. 
 
 But Milton's benevolence was always 
 restless in the pursuit of innovation as it 
 tended to improvement; and, like Caesar in 
 the field, he never thought any thing done 
 while any thing more in his opinion re- 
 mained to be done. Not content with the 
 
 * 
 
 common school authors, he placed in the 
 hands of boys from ten to fifteen years of 
 age such writers as, not remarkable for the 
 
202 LIFE OF MILTOK. 
 
 beauty or the purity of their diction, were 
 capable of giving information in some of the 
 departments of science. The books selected 
 for this purpose from the Roman authors 
 were, according to Philips, the agricultural 
 works of Cato, Columella, Varro, and Palla- 
 dius; the medical treatise of Cornelius Cel- 
 sus, Pliny's natural history, Vitruvius's ar- 
 chitecture, Frontinus's stratagems, and the 
 philosophical poems of Lucretius and Mani- 
 lius: from the Greek, Hesiod, Aratus, Diony- 
 sius's Periegesis, Oppian'sCynegetics and Ha- 
 lieutics, Apollonius Rhodius. Quintus Calaber, 
 some of Plutarch's philosophical works, Ge- 
 minus's astronomy, the Cyropaedia and Ana- 
 basis of Xenophon, Polyaenus's stratagems, 
 and ^Elian's tactics. 
 
 Admitting for a moment the propriety of 
 Milton's system of instruction and the so- 
 lidity of its foundation, we may reasonably 
 doubt whether man}^ of these authors were 
 calculated to promote it. Vitruvius may be 
 read with instruction on the subject of archi- 
 tecture: but, while the Roman agricultural 
 writers impart no useful information to the 
 natives of Britain, the Roman philosophi- 
 cal poets, (if Mahilius the perplexed, the 
 prosaic, the astrological Manillas can be 
 called either a philosopher or a poet,) com- 
 
LIFE OF MILTON. 203 
 
 municate nothing but what is bad. If Lu- 
 cretius's philosophy were not redeemed with 
 the wealth of his poetry, it would not now 
 attract a vagrant eye; and would proba- 
 bly have been whelmed under the worst 
 rubbish of antiquity. The selection from 
 the Greek is preferable to that from the 
 Latin writers. The Muses of Ascra arid 
 of Rhodes are certainly respectable; and 
 they present to us the stamp of the most 
 simple and the most refined age of Grecian 
 poetry. But they are to be regarded only 
 as poets; for Apollonius assumes nothing 
 more than to be the framer of a poetic fable, 
 and the ceconomy of the husbandry of He- 
 siod will not entitle him to the honourable 
 rank of an instructor in our country or in 
 the present age. Plutarch offers to us infor- 
 mation and strong sense in an unstudied 
 dress; and the two works of Xenophon are 
 admirable productions, well known in the 
 higher classes of our public schools, intel- 
 ligible and instructive to the boy and de- 
 lightful to the man. Oppian, Quintus Ca^ 
 laber, Geminus, Polyaenus and Mlian may 
 be dismissed, with Celsus Pliny and Fron- 
 tinus, as possessing various degrees of me- 
 rit and as objects of literary curiosity, but 
 
204 LIFE OF MILTON. 
 
 as qualified neither to give the young scholar 
 any useful information nor to form his taste. 
 Proceeding with this ambitious, if not 
 novel design of infusing extraordinary know- 
 ledge into the youthful rnind, Milton has been 
 expected to produce more than human abili- 
 ties have the power to command ; and has been 
 insulted for not sending from his little academy 
 orators and poets, philosophers and divines.* 
 No master can make scholars against the in- 
 hibition of nature ; and solitary learning cannot 
 snatch the palm of literary renown or compel 
 the gaze of the world. " Virftm volitare per 
 ora" to soar to the heights of fame is the 
 privilege of the highly favoured few ; and if we 
 compare the small proportion of these to the 
 multitude of the undistinguished even among 
 the most cultivated of the human race, if we 
 reflect on the hundreds and the thousands 
 
 k fe If his pupils," says the candid Philips, "had received his 
 documents with the same acuteness of wit and apprehension, 
 the same industry, alacrity, and thirst after knowledge as the 
 instructor was indued with, what prodigies of wit and learning 
 might they have proved." Life of Milton, xix. 
 
 Johnson talks with the true feeling, and in the proper style of 
 a schoolmaster. " Every man, that has ever undertaken to in- 
 struct others, can tell what slow advances he has been able to 
 make; and how much patience it requires to recall vagrant atten- 
 tion, to stimulate sluggish indifference, and to rectify absurd mis- 
 apprehension." Life of Milton. 
 
LIFE OF MILTON. 205 
 
 who in a short revolution of time pass 
 through our public schools to obscurity, we 
 shall cease to be surprised that not one of 
 Milton's small knot of pupils has asserted 
 any very eminent place among the scholars 
 or the writers of his country. We shall ra- 
 ther indeed wonder that two of them, (the 
 Philips's,) were authors and of no despicable 
 rank ; the youngest having published a Latin 
 answer to an anonymous attack 1 on his uncle 
 and his cause, and the eldest, besides that 
 life to which all the biographers of Milton 
 are so greatly indebted, a respectable Eng- 
 lish work with the Latin title of Theatrum 
 Poetarum, containing a list and character of 
 the ancient and the modern poets. In ho- 
 nour of Milton's earnest and intelligent dis- 
 charge of his duties as a teacher, it is re- 
 corded that these two young men, who 
 came under his care at the early ages of 
 ten and nine, were so rapidly forwarded in 
 their studies as in the course of one year 
 to be " able to understand a Latin author 
 at sight/' Aubrey, who relates the circum- 
 stance, ought to have been more specific 
 in his account. If he means by " a Latin 
 
 1 Ascribed, but beyond question unjustly, to the pen of 
 Dr. Bramhall, bishop of Deny, and afterwards archbishop of 
 Armagh. 
 
206 LIFE OF MILTON. 
 
 author/' any Latin author, the fact is cer- 
 tainly extraordinary, and reputable in nearly 
 an equal degree to the master and the 
 scholars. 
 
 But Milton's scheme extended beyond 
 the Roman and the Greek, to the Hebrew 
 with its dialects of Chaldee and Syriac, and 
 to some of the modern languages. It com- 
 prehended also a certain acquaintance with 
 the mathematics, and with their sublime 
 application to the purposes of astronomy. 
 While this various reading fully occupied 
 six days of the week, the seventh had its 
 appropriate and characteristic employment. 
 On this day the pupils, after reading to 
 their master a chapter in the Greek testa- 
 ment and hearing his explanation of it, 
 wrote, as he dictated, on some subject of 
 theology. 
 
 As his plan of education could not be 
 properly executed in his confined lodg- 
 ings in St. Bride's church-yard, he soon re- 
 moved to a house in Aldersgate-street, of 
 which the size admitted his scholars into 
 his family, and the situation, secluded by 
 a court from the street and opening into a 
 garden," 1 supplied the retirement and quiet 
 
 m It was one of those houses, which were called Garden- 
 houses, of which in that day there were many 5 and particularly 
 
LIFE OF MILTON. 
 
 favourable to literary attention. Here he 
 gave the example to his young students of 
 close application with abstinent diet; and 
 the only peculiar indulgence, which he al- 
 lowed himself, was that of a day of tem- 
 perate festivity once in three weeks or a 
 month. This day, which his nephew, adopt- 
 ing his uncle's college expression, calls " a 
 gaudy day," n was allotted to the society 
 of some young and gay friends. Of these, 
 Philips names Mr. Alphry and Mr. Millar, 
 and remarks that " they were the beaux of 
 those times; but that they were nothing near 
 so bad as those now a days/' The gay men 
 of the puritan age were indeed mere babies 
 in excess to the revellers of the succeed- 
 ing one; when the profligacy of a shame- 
 less court, propagated rapidly and strongly 
 through the country, had nearly driven mo- 
 desty and temperance from Britain. 
 
 Abstinence in diet was one of Milton's 
 favourite virtues; which he practised inva- 
 riably through life, and availed himself of 
 every opportunity to recommend in his writ- 
 ings. In his second beautiful elegy to his 
 
 in the northern suburbs. Our author's house in Petty France 
 was a garden-house. 
 
 n Philips's Life of Milton, xxi. A gaudy day at Cambridge is 
 a day on which the commons are increased. 
 
208 LIFE OF MILTON. 
 
 friend, Deodati, he admits of the use of wine 
 and good cheer to the lyric and the elegiac 
 poet; but to the lofty and ambitious epic, 
 who requires the higher and more continued 
 exertion of the more comprehensive intel- 
 lect, he will allow only the diet of Pythago- 
 ras. I will give the whole passage to which 
 I refer; and I persuade myself that the reader 
 will not regard it as too long in consequence 
 not only of its own beauty, but of that of 
 the translation with which the kindness of 
 my friend, the Rev. Francis Wrangham, has 
 enabled me to accompany it; a translation, 
 which unites the rare qualities of fidelity and 
 elegance, of concise yet ornamented diction. 
 
 Quid quereris refugam vino dapibusq; poesin? 
 
 Carmen amat Bacchum, carmina Bacchus amat. 
 Nee puduit Phoebum virides gestasse corymbos, 
 
 Atq; hederam lauro pneposuisse suae. 
 Saepius Aoniis clamavit collibus, Euoe ! 
 
 Mista Thyoneo turba novena choro. 
 Naso Corallaeis mala carmina misit ab agris: 
 
 Non illic epulae, non sata vitis erat. 
 Quid nisi vina, rosasq; racemiferumq; Lyaeum,, 
 
 Cantavit brevibus Tei'a Musa modis ? 
 Pindaricosq; inflat numeros Teumesius Euan ; 
 
 Et redolet sumptum pagina quaeq; merurn j 
 Dum gravis everso currus crepat axe supinus $ 
 
 Et volat Eleo pulvere fuscus eques. 
 Quadrimoq; madens lyricen Romanus laccho, 
 
 Dulce canit Glyceram, flavicomamq; Chloen. 
 Jam quoq; lauta tibi generoso mensa paratu 
 
 Mentis alit vires, ingeniumqj fovet. 
 

 LIFE OF MILTON^ 209 
 
 Massica foecundam despumant pocula venam, 
 
 Fundis et ex ipso condita metra cado. 
 Addimus his artes, fusuraque per intima Phoebum 
 
 Cordaj favent uni Bacchus, Apollo, Ceres. 
 Scilicet haud minim, tam dulcia carmina per te, 
 
 Nuraine composite, tres peperisse Deos. 
 Nunc quoque Thressa tibi coelato barbitos auro 
 
 Insonat arguta molliter icta rnanu : 
 Auditurque chelys suspensa tapetia circum, 
 
 Virgineos tremula quae regat arte pedes. 
 Ilia tuas saltern teneant speaacula Musas, 
 
 Et revocent, quantum crapula pellit iners. 
 Crede mihi dum psallit ebur, comitataque plectrum 
 
 Implet odoratos festa chorea tholos, 
 Percipies taciturn per pectora serpere Phoebum, 
 
 Quale repentinus permeat ossa calor; 
 Perque puellares cculos, digitumque sonanterri, 
 
 Irmet in totos lapsa Thalia sinus. 
 Namque elegia levis multorum cura Deorum est$ 
 
 Et vocat ad numerds quemlibet ilia suos. 
 Liber adest elegis, Eratoque Cefesque Venusque 
 
 Et cum purpurea matre tenellus Amor. 
 Talibus inde licent convivia larga poetis, 
 
 Saepius et veteri commaduisse mero. 
 At qui bella refrrt, et adulto sub Jove ccelum, 
 
 Heroasque pios, semideosque duces; 
 Et nunc sancta canit superum consulta deorum i 
 
 Nunc latrata fero regna profunda cane 3 
 I lie quidem parce, Samii pro more magistri, 
 
 Vivat, et innocuos praebeat herba cibos: 
 Stet prope fagineo pellucida lympha catillo, 
 
 Sobriaque e puro pocula fonte bibat. 
 Additur huic scelerisque vacans et casta juventus, 
 
 Et rigidi mores, et sine labe manus. 
 Qualis veste nitens sacra et lustralibus undis, 
 
 Surgis, ad infensos augur iture Deos. 
 Hoc ritu vixisse ferunt post rapta sagacem 
 
 Lumina Tiresian^ Ogygiumque Linon j 
 
210 LIFE OF MILTOK* 
 
 Et lare devoto profugum Calchanta, senemque 
 
 Orpheon, edomitis sola per antra feris. 
 Sic dapis exiguus, sic rivi potor Homerus 
 
 Dulichium vexit per freta longa virum; 
 Et per monstrificam Perseiae Phoebados aulamj 
 
 Et vada fcsmineis insidiosa sonis ; 
 Perque tuas, rex ime, domos, ubi sanguine nigro 
 
 Dicitur umbrarum detinuisse greges. 
 Diis etenim sacer est vates, divumque sacerdosj 
 
 Spirat et occultum pectus et ora Jovem. 
 
 Then why of wine's enfeebling cup complain ? 
 Beloved of verse, young Bacchus loves the strain. 
 Placed in fond preference o'er his laurel bough, 
 Oft has the ivy clasp'd Apollo's browj 
 And oft Aonia's hills have heard the Nine 
 With frantic shouts the madd'ning orgies join. 
 Weak was the lay from Tomi's vineless coast, 
 When Naso wept his feasts and friendships lost. 
 The flowing bowl with many a rose o'erhung, 
 In fancy's sprightliest lay Anacreon sung. 
 The Theban god inspires his Pindar's line j 
 And each bright hymn is redolent of wine : 
 
 Milton and Virgil disagree on the subject of Orpheus's- 
 age. 
 
 Spreto Ciconum quo munere matres 
 
 Inter sacra Deum, nocturnique orgia Bacchi 
 Decerptum latos juvenem sparsere per agros. 
 
 Georg. lib. iv. 522. 
 
 But each poet had a view perhaps in this instance, to his own 
 particular purpose. Milton wished to insinuate that his diet 
 had a tendency to promote longevity j and Virgil was aware 
 that he could not with any probability make the women of 
 Thrace so outrageous with an old man for his neglect of them 
 as to tear him to pieces. 
 
LIFE OF MILTON. 211 
 
 Whether o'erwhelnVd the groaning axle lie, 
 Or dark with Eliac dust the impetuous courser fly. 
 <f Hot with the Tuscan grape," his bright-hair'd maid 
 The Roman lyrist sang beneath the shade. 
 Nay thou, whose thankless strain the boon disowns, 
 Owest to the vine that strain's harmonious tones: 
 Bright as from casks where Massic juices glow, 
 And strong and pure thy sparkling stanzas flow. 
 Thine are the arts, in thee with Delphi's God 
 Bacchus and Ceres fix their loved abode: 
 Hence triply fed, thy dulcet accents roll, 
 Which melt and swell by turns the ravished soul. 
 And now, light sweeping o'er the golden wire, 
 The thrilling touch awakes the Orphean lyre 5 
 Now round the dome the tabret's echoes play, 
 That tea-ch the virgin's foot its mazy way. 
 These gorgeous shows the Muse may well detain, 
 When wine's strong fumes would chase her from the brain. 
 Trust me, when Music strikes her festive string, 
 And Dance, accordant, weaves the frolic ring; 
 Stealthy and soft, as warmth's pervading glow, 
 Through all thy veins the inspiring God will flow; 
 And from the finger snapt and beaming eye, 
 Thalia's self infuse the tuneful sigh. 
 For many a God o'er elegy presides, 
 Its spirit kindles, and its numbers guides. 
 There Bacchus, Ceres, Erato are seen, 
 And, with her beauteous boy, the Idalian queen: 
 And thence the chiefs of elegiac song 
 Drain the full bowl, and join the jocund throng. 
 But he, whose verse records the battle's roar, 
 And heroes feats, and demigods of yore; 
 The Olympic senate with their bearded king; 
 Or howls, that loud through Pluto's dungeons ring; 
 With simpler stores must spread his Samian board, 
 And browse well- pleased the vegetable hoard: 
 Close at his side the beechen cup be placed; 
 His thirst by Nature's limpid beverage chased j 
 
LIFE OF MILTON. 
 
 And P still to vice unknown, unchanged by art, 
 His be the guiltless hand, the guileless heart} 
 Pure as, with lustral stream and snowy vest, 
 The priests of Jove his lifted bolt arrest. 
 Twas thus the sightless seer Tiresias fared ; 
 And Linus thus his frugal meal prepared: 
 Such the repasts prophetic Calchas knew 5 
 And he, whose lyre the list'ning tigers drew. 
 On food like this immortal Homer fed, 
 Whose Muse from Troy the ten years' wanderer led 
 Safely through Circe's wizard halls convey'd, 
 Safely through seas where wily Sirens play'd, 
 Safely through death's dark waste, and dreariest hell, 
 Where thronging phantoms linger'd at his spell. 
 For shielding Gods the bard, their priest, surround, 
 Jove swells his breast, his accents Jove resound.^ 
 
 P ' ' I was confirmed in the opinion that he, who would not be 
 frustrated of his hope to write well hereafter in laudable things, 
 ought himself to be a true poem, that is, a composition and 
 pattern of the best and honourablest things, not presuming to 
 sing the high praises of heroic men or famous cities, unless he 
 has in himself the experience and the practice of all that is 
 praise-worthy." Apol. for Smect. P. W. i. 224. 
 
 i As the reader may be desirous of seeing the whole of this 
 pleasing elegy, I subjoin in this place the first and the last 
 twelve lines, which, not being immediately to my purpose, I 
 omitted in the body of the work. The translation is by Mr. 
 Wrangham. 
 
 AD CAROLUM DEODATUM RURI 
 COMMORANTEM. 
 
 Mitto tibi sanam, non pleno ventre, salutemj 
 
 Qua tu distento forte carere potes. 
 At tua quid nostram prolectat Musa camoenam, 
 
 Nee sinit optatas posse sequi tenebras ? 
 Carmine scire velis quam te redamemque, colamque ? 
 
LIFE OF MILTON. 13 
 
 While Milton's occupation, as a teacher, 
 
 Crede mihi vix hoc carmine scire queas. 
 Nam neque noster amor modulis includitur arctis, 
 
 Nee venit ad claudos integer ipse pedes. 
 Quam bene solennes epulas, hilaremque decembrem, 
 
 Festaque codifugam quae coluere Deum : 
 Deliciasque refers,, hiberni gaudia ruris, 
 
 Haustaque per lepidos Gallica musta focos? 
 
 Light and unfever'd with excess, I send 
 
 Health, haply wanted, to my teasting friend. 
 
 But why with song provoke my lingering lay, 
 
 And drag the unwilling scribbler into day ? 
 
 Would'st thou from verse my ardent friendship know? 
 
 'Tis not in verse a flame so pure to show. 
 
 Ah ! not to scanted strains, and halting song, 
 
 The powers to grasp my perfect love belong. 
 
 The Christmas glee, December's mirthful board; 
 
 And fabled Saturn's revelry restored: 
 
 The circling glass, the winter's joyous blaze, 
 
 How passing well thy jovial muse displays ! 
 
 Then why of wine's, c. 
 
 At tu siquid agam scitabere, (si modo saltern 
 
 Esse putas tanti noscere siquid agam,) 
 Paciferum canimus ccelesti semine regem, 
 
 Faustaque sacratis ssecula pacta libris; 
 Vagitumque Dei, et stabulantem paupere tectq 
 
 Qui suprema suo cum patre regna colitj 
 Stelliparumque polum, modulantesque aethere turmas, 
 
 Et subito elisos ad sua fana Deos. 
 Dona quidem dedimus Christi natalibus ilia, 
 
 Ilia sub auroram lux mihi prima tulit. 
 Te quoque pressa manent patriis meditata cicutis, 
 
 Tu mihi, cui recitem, judicis instar eris. 
 
 But thou, should interest, kind or curious, bend, 
 Anxious to ask what toils employ thy friend 3 
 
LIFE OF MILTON. 
 
 preserved his familiarity with many of the 
 Roman and Greek authors, and was conse- 
 quently not without its use to him, it was 
 not permitted to interfere with what he con- 
 ceived to be his duties as a citizen, and with 
 that patriotic object which had recalled him 
 from the shores of Sicily and Greece. De- 
 termined, from his first acquaintance with the 
 struggles of his country, to devote himself to 
 her service, he did not hesitate with respect 
 
 Know that the Son of heavens eternal King, 
 
 By holy sages sung, he dares to sing ; 
 
 All meanly unapt in the rude manger laid y 
 
 The infant -Godhead, and his mother-maid: 
 
 Harping in solemn quire, the cherubs helmd, 
 
 And new born stars, and fanes with their dumb id&ts 
 
 whelm'd. 
 
 A solemn tribute on his natal day, 
 Or ere the point of dawn I framed the lay. 
 And thee, my friend, awaits the English strain : 
 Thy critic ear shall judge, nor I recite in vain. 
 
 The reader need not be informed that, in these lines, Mil- 
 ton alludes to his ode on Christ's nativity. The expressions, 
 in italics, are borrowed from this ode. 
 
 This excellent translation Mr. Hay ley has prudently omitted 
 to notice when he published Mr. Cowper's version of the same 
 elegy. Mr. H. was aware, no doubt, that any comparison of the 
 two productions would not be in favour of his friend's, and there- 
 fore, with more judgment than candour he suppressed all re- 
 ference to the superior composition. 
 
 Of Mr. Cowper's translations, which have lately been pub- 
 lished, that of Francini's Italian Ode is unquestionably the best. 
 With respect to the rest, it cannot with truth be said that any of 
 them rise above mediocrity. 
 
 
LIFE OF MILTON. 
 
 to the part in which he was to act. Con- 
 scious of his own proper strength, and sen- 
 sible that genius armed with knowledge was 
 a power of far greater and more extensive 
 efficiency than the bodily force of any in- 
 dividual, he decided in favour of the pen 
 against the sword; and stationed himself in 
 the closer, where he was himself an host, ra^ 
 ther than in the field, where every muscular 
 private man would be his superior. This 
 is substantially the account which we have 
 from himself; and the motives of his conduct 
 must obtain our approbation as honourable 
 and wise/ 
 
 The Long Parliament was now assembled 
 as the representative of a nation, irritated 
 and alarmed by very flagrant abuses of power 
 
 r " Atque illi quidem, Deo perinde confisi, servitutem ho- 
 nestissimis armis pepulere : cujus laudis etsi nullam partem 
 mihi vindico, a reprehensione tamen vel timiditatis vel ignaviae, 
 siqua infertur, facile me tueor. Neque enim militiae labores et 
 pericula sic defugi, ut non alia ratione et operam multo uti- 
 liorem nee rainore cum periculo meis civibus navarim, et ani- 
 nium dubiis in rebus neque demissum unquam, neque ullius 
 invidise vel etiam mortis plus sequo metuentem prsestiterim. 
 Nam cam ab adolescentulo humanioribus essem studiis ut qui 
 maxime deditus, et ingenio semper quam corpore validior, post- 
 liabita castrensi opera, qua. me gregarius quilibet robustior 
 facile superasset, ad ea me contuli quibus plus potui; ut parte 
 mei meliore ac potitire,, si saperem, non deteriore, ad rationes 
 patriae, causamque hanc praestantissimam quantum maxime pos- 
 sem momentum accederem." 
 
216 LITE OF MILTON. 
 
 in the civil and in the ecclesiastical depart- 
 ment. The king's violent conduct to his four 
 former parliaments, with his unrelenting im- 
 prisonment of their members, one of 5 whom 
 had died under the length and rigours of the 
 confinement; his violent attempts to govern 
 by prerogative alone; his arbitrary exactions 
 in violation of all law, and the severe sen- 
 tences, with which his council and his courts 
 abetted and enforced his injudicious despo- 
 tism, had alienated all the orders of the com- 
 
 " Relying on the assistance of God, they indeed repelled 
 servitude with the most justifiable war 5 and though I claim no 
 share of their peculiar praise, I can easily defend myself against 
 the charge, (if any charge of that nature should be brought 
 against me,) of timidity or of indolence. For I did not for any 
 other reason decline the toils and the dangers of war than that 
 I might in another way, with much more efficacy and with 
 not less danger to myself, render assistance to my countrymen, 
 and discover a mind neither shrinking from adverse fortune, 
 nor actuated by any improper fear of calumny or of death. 
 Since from my childhood I had been devoted to the more libe- 
 ral studies and was always more powerful in my intellect than 
 in my body,, avoiding the labours of the camp, in which any 
 robust common soldier might easily have surpassed me, I betook 
 myself to those weapons which I could wield with the most 
 effect; and I conceived that I was acting wisely when I thus 
 brought my better and more valuable faculties, those which 
 constituted my principal strength and consequence, to the assist- 
 ance of my country and her most honourable cause." Def. 
 Sec. P. W. v. 199. 
 
 8 A very accurate and circumstantial history of England, by 
 various authors, (a second edition of which was published in two 
 
LIFE OF MILTON. 
 
 munity, and had made them ripe for resist- 
 ance and innovation. The despotism of the 
 leaders of the church party had walked side 
 
 vols. folio in 1/19) says on this subject, " They" (the arrested 
 members, when brought for trial into the court of King s Bench) 
 " refused to submit to any thing but the necessity of a long im- 
 prisonment, where some of them died in custody 3 and others trea- 
 sured up a reputation of confessors for the privileges of parlia^ 
 mentj and in 1(540 had an ample reward of thanks and money." 
 [iii. 53.] 
 
 As the reign of Charles the First in this variorum history i* 
 written by a zealous royalist, who is as minute and correct in his 
 statement of facts as he is weak and prejudiced in his remarks on 
 them, I might in this instance safely follow him, and assert on 
 his authority that more than one of the leading parliamentary 
 oppositionists at the time in question, on the dissolution of the 
 third parliament of this reign, had fallen victims to the revenge 
 and despotism of the court. But as the historian forbears to 
 specify the number or the names of the patriot members who thus 
 died for the liberties of their country, I have contented myself 
 with asserting only what I knew to be factj and for the, " some," 
 of this writer have contented myself with substituting, " one." 
 Whitelocke records a vote of the Parliament in 1(546, by which 
 150001. are given, in three equal divisions, to Mr. Strode's kin- 
 dred, and to the children of Sir John Elliot and those of Sir 
 Peter Hammond, tf for the sufferings of their parents, &c. for 
 opposing the illegalities of that time." * From this it might 1 e 
 inferred that Mr. Strode and Sir P. Hammond had perished by 
 the same fate with Sir J. Elliot : but as this is not expressly 
 mentioned by Whitelocke, (who is silent also as to the parti- 
 cular cause of Sir John Elliot's death,) I shall not insist on it. Of 
 Sir John Elliot's doom his family have preserved a memorial in a 
 portrait, which was drawn of him during his imprisonment and 
 not long before his decease. 
 
 [* White, Mem. p. 238.] 
 
218 LITE OF MILTON. 
 
 by side with that of the court; and their rigor- 
 ous persecution of the Puritans, which was 
 offensive to the feelings of the humane and to 
 the moderation of the liberal, had excited 
 the fears and the jealousies of the wise. The 
 power of the episcopal courts had every 
 where been urged into unusual animation 
 by the superintendence and incitement of 
 the formidable High-Commission; and almost 
 every diocese had witnessed scenes of rigour 
 similar to those which had disgraced and ex- 
 asperated the capital. 
 
 In this trembling state of things, when 
 Milton perceived that his country was pro- 
 ceeding resolutely to assert her liberty, he 
 imagined that he was complying with a ne- 
 cessary duty, and was taking his proper part 
 in the promotion of the common cause, by 
 engaging in the behalf of ecclesiastical free- 
 dom with the bishops. 
 
 The church of England at this unfortu- 
 nate crisis could boast among her prelates 
 of a Williams, a Davenant, a Hall, and an 
 Usher; men illustrious for their talents, 
 eminent by their learning, amiable for their 
 virtues, and venerable for their piety: but un- 
 happily at their head was placed a prelate, 
 whose views were narrow, whose superstition 
 was abject and intolerant, and who was 
 
LIFE OF MILTON. 
 
 pleased to be the supporter of that despo- 
 tism which supported his own. 
 
 Much as I dislike the principles and the 
 temper of the unfortunate Laud, I would 
 willingly believe that the conduct, which pro- 
 duced such ruinous consequences to his cause 
 and to the whole community, was the offspring 
 of good motives, and that he intended well as 
 a Christian, though he acted perniciously as 
 a politician. For his bigoted observance of 
 ceremonies he could plead the example of 
 some of his most eminent predecessors; and, 
 at any other period than that in which he 
 lived, when it was considered and was per- 
 haps designed as a concialitory advance to 
 the Roman church, 1 this observance would 
 have been an innocent if not an inoffensive 
 display of littleness. His support of an arbi- 
 trary court is as easily to be pardoned by the 
 liberal and comprehensive rnind, which can 
 allow for the effects of education or for the 
 natural, and of course venial corruption of 
 office in its influence on the understanding 
 and the heart. But when I see him con- 
 
 1 Archbishop Laud is certainly exempt from any suspicion 
 of a bias towards popery: but he entertained a chimerical 
 notion of the practicability of an union between the Churches 
 of England and of Romej and he weakly hoped that this great 
 object might be accomplished by mutual and equal concessions. 
 
220 LIFE OF MILTOtf. 
 
 founding the cause of Christ with that of the 
 prelate; when I observe him persecuting 
 with merciless rigour men of exemplary lives, 
 united with him in every point of Christian 
 faith, and whose sole crime was a conscien- 
 tious opposition to the hierarchal dignity, and 
 a regard to what they deemed to be the sim- 
 plicity of the gospel ; when I contemplate him 
 on the judgment seat, "uncovering his head 
 and thanking God on the passing of a cruel 
 sentence which he had himself dictated ; 
 when I see him afterwards in his closet re- 
 cording with calm rancour and cold-blooded 
 exultation the execution of these judicial 
 barbarities ; when I behold him insulting 
 the age of the mild and liberal Abbot and 
 spurning him from his throne, to obtain 
 premature possession of the metropolitan 
 power; when I remark him ruining, with 
 vengeance as ungrateful as it was unrelent- 
 ing, the first patron of his fortunes, bishop 
 Williams, whose hand had placed the mitre 
 on his head my charity must necessarily 
 falter, and I cannot immediately decide that 
 
 u When an inhuman senterca was passed upon Dr. Leigh- 
 ton, Laud pulled off his cap in the court, and thanked God for 
 it. . The prelate noted in his diary the execution of these butcher- 
 ing sentences of the Star Chamber and High Commission with 
 the cool malignity of a fiend. 
 

 LIFE OF MILTON* 221 
 
 he stands accountable for nothing more than 
 erroneous judgment. He wished indeed 
 for the prosperity of the church, but only 
 as it was blended with the splendour of the 
 hierarchy; and he laboured for its aggran- 
 disement, as Philip laboured for that of 
 Macedon or Frederic for that of Prussia, 
 that it might form the broader and more ele- 
 vated pedestal to his own individual great- 
 ness. The archbishop however and the 
 monarchs pursued their objects with very 
 different degrees of wisdom, and conse- 
 quently of success: for while the measures 
 of the latter were conducted to a prosperous 
 issue by prudence and conciliation, as the 
 means of power, those of the former were 
 led to disappointment by rashness and irri- 
 tation, in their common characters as the 
 causes of unpopularity and weakness. By 
 the prelate's conduct his party was covered 
 with odium; and it was deserted by the x wise, 
 who foresaw its approaching ruin, and by 
 the moderate who were disgusted with its 
 tyranny. 
 
 x Bishop Williams, when pressed by the commissaries of the 
 High Commission to proceed with rigour against the Puritans 
 in his diocese of Lincoln, did not scruple to say that he would 
 (( not meddle against the Puritans, as he was sure that they 
 ff would carry all things at last." RUSH. vol. i. p. 424. This 
 was the immediate cause of the good bishop's ruin. 
 
LIFE OF MILTON. 
 
 I am strongly attached to the Church of 
 England, from whose lap I sprang and at 
 whose bosom I have been fostered: but mv 
 
 / 
 
 attachment to her is not that of instinct, but 
 of reason. I love her not merely because she 
 is my mother and my nurse, but because 
 she is deserving of my love. I regard her 
 as she offers to God a spiritual worship, yet 
 condescends to the imperfect nature of the 
 worshipper; and keeps as remote from the 
 rude and unsightly devotion of Calvin, as 
 from the childish and idolatrous mummery 
 of Rome: I respect her as she extends her 
 usefulness by accommodating her ranks to 
 those of the community in which she is 
 established; and, while she contributes to 
 the social harmony by her enforcement of 
 its requisite subordination, considers man 
 upon a level when she officiates as the minis- 
 ter of God: but I give to her my most ardent 
 affection when I contemplate her as mild 
 and liberal, as uniting order with toleration, 
 as the patroness of learning and the encou- 
 rager of inquiry, as the determined enemy of 
 persecution for opinions, whether it be avowed 
 by the stern republicanism of a presbytery 
 or by the unfeeling policy of a pontifical con- 
 clave. Such is the ground on which I rest my 
 affection to my native Church: but if I saw 
 
LIFE OF MILTON. 223 
 
 her actuated by a narrow and ferocious spirit, 
 guarding her own temporal honours with more 
 jealousy than the vital principles of Christ's 
 religion, doing evil with the flagitious pre- 
 tence that good may be the result, mounted 
 on a sanguinary tribunal to suppress opi- 
 nion with overwhelming punishment, and 
 hearing with delight the groan that issued 
 from a bosom hostile to herself if I saw her 
 in this sad state of defection from her own 
 character and of apostacy from the religion 
 of her Master, I should no longer recognise 
 her as the object of my filial reverence; I 
 would renounce her with indignation; and, 
 throwing her disgraceful favours at her feet, 
 I would retire, beyond her corruption and 
 her vengeance, to some uncivilized region 
 where I might vindicate the name of Jesus 
 from her impious profanation, and show him 
 to be the author of blessings, not of misery 
 to man. 
 
 These sentiments are not mine alone; 
 they are the properly of every English Chris- 
 tian who is undepraved by habit or unse- 
 duced by interest. At the period of which 
 we are writing, their influence was almost 
 universally acknowledged. Numbers, terri- 
 fied and shocked by Laud's violences, fled 
 over the Atlantic, and planted in the deserts 
 
 
LITE OF MILTOJS T . 
 
 of New England the standard of civil and 
 of religious freedom. Numbers, reserving 
 themselves for more propitious times and 
 not despairing of their country, sought a 
 temporary asylum in the bosom of Europe; 
 and still greater numbers remained in sullen 
 and formidable inaction at home, either pro- 
 tected by their own situation, as laymen, or 
 sheltered, if ministers, in the families of the 
 nobility; and all solicitously waiting for the 
 moment of reformation or revenge. 
 
 This was now arrived, and they exulted at 
 its presence. Defeated by the Scots in conse- 
 quence of the disaffection of the English, and 
 in the midst of political gloom, which was 
 hourly condensing and growing blacker, the 
 king, averse as he might be from the measure, 
 was at length compelled by the imperious 
 circumstances of his situation to have recourse 
 in earnest to a parliament: and the represen- 
 tative of the nation was accordingly con- 
 vened. 
 
 This parliament, as Lord Clarendon wit- 
 nesses, was formed wholly of members y who 
 
 y If we could wish for more evidence (for better there can- 
 not be) of the certainty of the fact in question, we might ob- 
 tain it from a writer who on this subject is as well entitled per- 
 haps to credit as Clarendon himself, Dr. Lewis Du Moulin, who 
 wrote the " Appeal of the Non-conformists upon their obedience 
 

 LIFE OF MILTOK. 225 
 
 were friendly to .the government and to the 
 Church of England, and who wished not to 
 overthrow, but who, disgusted and frightened 
 by the spectacle which had been presented 
 to them, were resolute to redress and ardent 
 to reform. The power, which the present 
 state of things threw into their hands, enabled 
 them to cut off, with an immediate and effec- 
 tual stroke, much of the existing mischief in 
 its pernicious source. In the second month 
 of their sitting, they impeached the unfortu- 
 nate primate; they rescued his victims from 
 their dungeons ; they recalled his exiles 2 to 
 
 to God and the King," in 1081, affirms that " The Parliament," 
 (the Long Parliament,) " both Lords and Commons, was most if 
 not all composed of peaceable, orthodox Church of England men, 
 all conforming to the rites and ceremonies of episcopacy; but yet 
 greatly averse to popery and tyranny, and the corrupt party of the 
 Church of England that inclined toward Rome," &c. 
 
 z The returning Puritans might have exulted over their 
 prostrate persecutor in nearly the same strains of triumph, 
 which Isaiah, in his two-fold character of prophet and of poet, 
 so nobly ascribes to the exiles of Israel on the fall of the King 
 of Babylon. " How hath the oppressor ceased ! He, who 
 smote the people in wrath with a continual stroke, he that 
 ruled the nations in anger, is persecuted, and none hindereth. 
 All they shall speak, and say unto thee Art thou also become 
 weak as we? Art thou become like unto us? Thy pomp is 
 brought down to the ground, and the noise of thy viols. They 
 that see thee shall narrowly look upon thee, saying, Is this 
 the man that made the earth to tremble? that did shake king- 
 doms? that opened not the house of his prisoners?" The 
 Star Chamber and High Commission Courts were abolished by 
 an act of the legislature on the 5th of July, 1641. 
 
 Q 
 
LIFE OF MILTON. 
 
 behold his fall ; they released the press from 
 its " horrid silenc,e," and permitted it to pour 
 its long imprisoned torrent on the heads of 
 the oppressor and his party. 
 
 On Milton's return from the continent, 
 he found, as he informs us, the clamour loud 
 and general against the bishops; some com- 
 plaining of their tyranny, and some protest- 
 ing against the existence of the mitred hie- 
 rarchy itself. It was now beginning to be safe 
 to talk: but, the Parliament not being yet 
 convened, the public indignation was forced 
 still to wait, during a short interval, before 
 it could diffuse itself from the press. When 
 this rapid propagator of opinions and best 
 guardian of truth was at last liberated, the 
 prelatical party was assailed on all sides with 
 argument and learning, with virulence and 
 reproach. Our author, as I believe, was on 
 this occasion the leader of the attack; the 
 first who became the organ of his own and 
 of the popular resentment against the rulers 
 of the church. His beloved tutor, Young, 
 had been one of the victims of the primate's 
 intolerance; and the new polemic entered on 
 his career with the blended feeling of public 
 and of private wrong, with the zeal of a san- 
 guine and with the emotion of an injured 
 man, 
 
LIFE OF MILTON. 
 
 His two books, " of Reformation touch- 
 ing Church-Government in England/' ad- 
 dressed to a friend, discover earnestness and 
 integrity; and are the produce of a forci- 
 ble and acute, a comprehensive and richly- 
 stored mind. " And here withal/' he a says, 
 " I invoke the Immortal Deity, revealer and 
 judge of secrets, that wherever I have in this 
 book, plainly and roundly, (though worthily 
 and truly) laid open the faults and blemishes 
 of fathers, martyrs, or Christian emperors, or 
 have inveighed against error and supersti- 
 tion with vehement expressions, I have done 
 it neither out of malice, nor list to speak 
 evil, nor any vain glory; but of mere neces- 
 sity to vindicate the spotless truth from an 
 ignominious bondage." The reformation in 
 our Church had not proceeded, as he thought, 
 to the proper extent; and the suspension of 
 its progress he attributes principally to its 
 prelates, " who, though they had renounced 
 the Pope, yet hugged the popedom, and 
 shared the authority among themselves." He 
 gives a minute history of the Church of Eng- 
 land from its birth; and, explaining the causes 
 of what he deemed to be its imperfect sepa- 
 ration from that of Rome and its halting at a 
 
 a Of Reformation, &c. P. W. i. 8. 
 
228 LIFE OF MILTON'. 
 
 distance behind the other reformed churches, 
 he pays no great respect to the venerable 
 names of our early reformers, who attested 
 the purity of their motives with their blood. 
 Though excellent, they were still indeed fal- 
 lible men; and, admitting that their ex- 
 ample or their doctrine could be employed 
 as the shield of error, every true Christian 
 would join with our author in exclaiming, 
 " more b tolerable it were for the Church of 
 God that all these names (of Cranmer, La- 
 timer, Ridley, &c.) were utterly abolished, 
 like the brazen serpent, than that men's fond 
 opinions should thus idolize them, and the 
 heavenly truth be thus captivated." 
 
 His language in these tracts is every 
 where original, figurative, and bold: but his 
 sentences are either not sufficiently or not 
 happily laboured. His words, attentive only 
 to sense, appear to rush into their places as 
 they can; and whenever their combination 
 forms an harmonious period, the effect looks 
 like the result of chance, unconcerted and 
 unheeded by the writer. Force is that cha- 
 racter of style which he principally affects, 
 and, that he may obtrude his mind with 
 weight and impression on the mind of his 
 
 b Of Reformation, fcc. P, W. i. 8. 
 
LITE OF MILTON. 29 
 
 reader, lie scruples not to avail himself of 
 the coarsest images and expressions. His 
 object is to array himself in strength; and, 
 not satisfied with making us to understand his 
 
 o 
 
 meaning, he must also make us to feel it. His 
 matter and his manner are often equally 
 erroneous: hut his deficiencies are sometimes 
 concealed from us by those flashes of imagi- 
 nation which cover his rough pages, and are 
 sometimes pardoned by us in consequence 
 of that conviction which he enforces of the 
 thorough honesty of his heart. 
 
 His indignation, though frequently of- 
 fensive and rude, is frequently, likewise, elo- 
 quent and sublime. u Amongst many se- 
 condary and accessory causes," he remarks, 
 c; that support monarchy, these are not of 
 the least reckoning, though common to all 
 other states; the love of the subjects, the 
 multitude and valour of the people, and 
 store of treasure. In all these things hath 
 the kingdom been of late sore weakened, 
 and chiefly by the prelates. First, let any 
 man consider that if any prince shall suffer 
 under him a commission of authority to be 
 exercised till all the land groan and cry out 
 as against a whip of scorpions, whether this 
 
 c Of Reformation, &c. P. W. i. 37. 
 
230 LITE OF MILTON. 
 
 be not likely to lessen and keel the affections 
 of the subject. Next, what numbers of 
 faithful and free-born Englishmen and good 
 Christians have been constrained to forsake 
 their dearest home, their friends and kin- 
 dred, whom nothing but the wide ocean, and 
 the savage deserts of America could hide or 
 shelter from the fury of the bishops? O sir, 
 if we could but see the shape of our dear 
 mother England, as poets are wont to give 
 a personal form to what they please, how 
 would she appear, think you, but in a mourn- 
 ing weed, with ashes upon her head, and tears 
 abundantly flowing from her eyes to behold 
 so many of her children exposed at once, and 
 thrust from things of dearest necessity, be- 
 cause their conscience could not assent to 
 things, which d the bishops thought indiffer- 
 ent? What more binding than conscience? 
 what more free than indifferency ? Cruel 
 then must that indifferency needs be that 
 shall violate the strict necessity of conscience; 
 
 d A modern historian, whose integrity, acuteness, and manly 
 spirit entitle him to my highest respect, speaking of the same 
 things with Milton, the ceremonies and rituals which were 
 enforced with so much unrelenting severity by Laud, remarks 
 with incontrovertible truth ({ They were imposed by the pre- 
 lates as things in themselves indifferent, in which obedience is 
 due to the supreme power, without recollecting that whatever 
 is indifferent in religion should belong to the votary's discretion 
 and choice." Laing's Hist, of Scotland, b. i. 79. 
 
LIFE OF MILTON. 
 
 merciless and inhuman that free choice and 
 liberty that shall break asunder the bonds of 
 religion! Let the astrologer be dismayed at 
 the portentous blaze of comets and impres- 
 sions in the air, as foretelling troubles and 
 changes to states ; I shall believe there can- 
 
 *^> 
 
 not be a more ill-boding sign to a nation 
 (God turn the omen from us) than when the 
 inhabitants to avoid insufferable grievances 
 are enforced by heaps to forsake their native 
 country/' 
 
 His address, in the course of this work, 
 to the two nations of England and Scotland, 
 united at that time in strenuous resistance to 
 the government, is in the same high and spi- 
 rited style. " Go e on both hand in hand, O 
 nations, never to be disunited. Be the praise 
 and the heroic song of all posterity. Merit 
 this: but seek only virtue, not to extend your 
 limits, (for what need you win a fading, tri- 
 umphant laurel out of the tears of wretched 
 men?) but to settle the pure worship of God 
 in his church, and justice in the state. Then 
 shall the hardest difficulties smooth them- 
 selves before you: f envy shall sink to hell: 
 
 e Of Reformation, &c. P. W. i. 46. 
 
 f Invidia infelix furias amnemque severum 
 Cocyti metuet, tortosque Ixionis angues, 
 Immanemque rotam et non exsuperabile saxum. 
 
 ' VIR, Geor. I. 3. 
 
LIFE OF MILTON 
 
 craft and malice be confounded, whether it 
 be homebred mischief or outlandish g cun- 
 ning. Yea, other nations will then court to 
 serve you; for lordship and victory are but 
 the pages of justice and virtue. Commit 
 securely to true wisdom the vanquishing and 
 uncasing of craft and subtilty, which are 
 but her two runagates. Join your invinci- 
 ble might to do worthy and godlike deeds; 
 and then he who seeks to break your union, 
 a cleaving curse be his inheritance to all 
 generations/' 
 
 To this and to other attacks from puritan 
 pens bishop Hall thought it necessary to 
 reply. This virtuous and able man had for- 
 merly at the request of Laud, in the season 
 of that prelate's power when he was pur- 
 Envy, unblest, shall deep with furies dwell. 
 By sad Cocytus in fc!;e darkest hell : 
 Shall tremble as she sees Ixion bound 
 With twisted serpents to the wheel's huge round j 
 Or views the stone that, urged with painful force, 
 Toils to the high hill's brow, then bounds with back- 
 ward course. 
 
 s This alludes to those popish intrigues, which certainly con- 
 tributed to the calamities of our author's times. The court of 
 Rome by its agents, the Jesuits, endeavoured in the first instance 
 to gain the king and his party, and by their means to crush the 
 Puritans. When the steadiness of the king to the Church of 
 England disappointed them of this object, they turned against 
 him, and were accomplices in his ruin. 
 
LIFE OF MILTON. 233 
 
 suing his triumph over his adversaries, com- 
 posed a treatise on the divine right of epis- 
 copacy. This work however was so altered 
 by the primate before it passed through the 
 press, that its pious author, when called upon 
 / at a later period for the purpose, found some 
 difficulty in acknowledging the principles 
 avowed in his own book. If the moderation 
 of this conscientious prelate and of the ad- 
 mirable Usher had happily prevailed at this 
 juncture in the ecclesiastical council, the 
 Church probably would have stood firm in 
 opposition to all the violence of her wild and 
 enthusiastic assailants: but the alien spirit 
 of intolerance and fierceness, which she had 
 imbibed from Laud's influence, deprived her 
 of the public affection, and without this sup- 
 port she soon tottered and fell. 
 
 Bishop Hall's present treatise bore the 
 title of "An humble Remonstrance to the 
 High Court of Parliament;" and about the 
 same time archbishop Usher published " The 
 Apostolical Institution of Episcopacy/' In 
 answer to these powerful and learned works, 
 Milton wrote two pieces in the same year, 
 the first of which he called, " Of Prelatical 
 Episcopacy;" and the second, "The Rea- 
 son of Church Government urged against 
 Prelacy." These, like his former controver- 
 
234 LIFE OF MILTON. 
 
 sial productions, are distinguished by force, 
 acuteness, and erudition: but their language, 
 though bearing a greater appearance of ar- 
 tifice and labour, is still evidently that of a 
 man, more conversant with the authors of 
 Greece and Rome than with those of his 
 own country, and seems to be formed with- 
 out sufficient attention to the genius of his 
 native tongue. This observation will apply 
 with very diminished force to some of his 
 succeeding compositions: but in all of them 
 there is an occasional recurrence of foreign 
 idioms, and of a classic inversion of phrase, 
 not properly admissible in a language in 
 which prepositions supply the place and of- 
 fice of inflexions. 
 
 The point, at issue between these po- 
 lemics, was the divine or the human origin 
 of episcopacy, as a peculiar order in the 
 church, invested with spiritual rights and 
 powers, distinct in kind and preeminent in 
 degree. That an officer with the title of 
 episcopus or overseer, (corrupted at first by 
 our Saxon progenitors into bijcop, and af- 
 terwards softened into bishop,) had existed 
 in the Church from its first construction by 
 the Apostles, was a fact which could not be 
 denied: but while this officer was asserted 
 by one party to have been nothing more thaii 
 
LIFE OF MILTON. 235 
 
 the president of the assembly of elders, he 
 was affirmed by the other to have been ele-- 
 vated above these elders or presbyters by 
 essential privileges, by a separate as well as 
 by a superior jurisdiction. The temporal 
 possessions and rights of the prelacy could 
 not properly constitute any part of the con- 
 troversy. As a portion of the political sys- 
 tem of the country and tracing their pedi- 
 gree no higher than to the civil establishment 
 of the Church, these adventitious circum- 
 stances were to be debated on the ground of 
 expediency alone; and to blend them with the 
 immediate and distinct object in question 
 seems to have been an unfair practice of the 
 puritan disputants, for the purpose of increas- 
 ing the unpopularity of their adversaries. 
 Till the Church was adopted by the govern- 
 ment, under Constantine, its officers could not 
 be invested with civil rank or with corporate 
 property: but ihe subsequent accession of 
 political importance would not supersede 
 their spiritual jurisdiction, and could not be 
 denounced as incompatible because it was 
 not coeval with their original appointment. 
 
 As a specimen of our author's manner and 
 spirit in these pieces, I will cite the follow- 
 ing passage respecting the puerile and super- 
 stitious Papias, whom Usher had adduced as 
 
236* LIFE OF MILTON. 
 
 the link which connected episcopacy with 
 the apostolical age. " And h this may be a 
 sufficient reason to us, why we need no longer 
 muse at the spreading of many idle tradi- 
 tions so soon after the Apostles, whilst such 
 as this Papias had the throwing about, and 
 the inconsiderate zeal of the next age, that 
 heeded more the person than the doctrine, 
 had the gathering them up, Wherever a, 
 man, who had been in any way conversant 
 with the Apostles, was to be found, thither 
 flew all the inquisitive ears, although the ex- 
 ercise of right instructing was changed into 
 the curiosity of impertinent fabling. Where 
 the mind was to be edified with solid doc- 
 trine, there the fancy was soothed with so- 
 lemn fables: with less fervency was studied 
 what St. Paul or St. John had written, than 
 was listened to one that could say, ' here he 
 taught; here he stood; this was his stature; 
 and thus he went" habited:' and, ' O happy 
 house that harboured him, and that cold 
 stone whereon he rested; this village where- 
 in he wrought such a miracle, and that pave- 
 ment bedewed with the warm effusion of his 
 last blood, that sprouted up into eternal 
 roses to crown his martyrdom!" From the 
 
 h Of Prelatical Episco. P. W. i. 69. 
 
LIFE OF MILTON* 237 
 
 last of these works " The reason of Church 
 Government, &c." we have already cited 
 some fine passages respecting the writer and 
 his poetic contemplations; and with these 
 we shall content ourselves as sufficient speci- 
 mens of the composition. 
 
 These productions of Milton's were un* 
 questionably the most learned and able on 
 the puritan side of the controversy. But the 
 piece which seems most to have attracted 
 the public attention was a pamphlet, written 
 by the united powers of five of the presbyte- 
 rian divines, under the appellation of Smec- 
 tymnuus, a word formed with the initial let- 
 ters of the names of the authors, Stephen 
 Marshal, Edmund Calamy, Thomas Young, 
 Matthew Newcomen, and William Spurstow. 
 
 To this publication bishop Hall replied 
 in " A Defence of the Remonstrance ;" and 
 Milton's formidable pen, drawn again in 
 angry opposition to the prelate, produced 
 " Animadversions on the Remonstrant's De- 
 fence." This work is thrown into the form 
 of a dialogue between the remonstrant and 
 his answerer, that passages from the prelate's 
 pages, being assigned to the mouth of the 
 former, may be confounded in their de- 
 tached and helpless state by the remarks of 
 
238 LIFE OF MILTON. 
 
 the latter. " Why 1 this close and succinct' 
 manner/' says our author, " was rather to be 
 chosen, this was the reason, chiefly that the 
 ingenious reader, without further amusing 
 himself in the labyrinth of controversial an- 
 tiquity, may come to the speediest way to 
 see the truth vindicated and sophistry taken 
 short at the first false bound." The replies of 
 the animadverler are always severe and fre- 
 quently jocose; and there prevails through- 
 out the piece a grim smile which sharpens 
 and aggravates the offence. 
 
 When we contemplate these works as the 
 productions of one year, and of a man oc- 
 cupied with the fatiguing duties of an in- 
 structor of boys, we must necessarily wonder 
 at that unwearied industry, that ready appli- 
 cation of various knowledge, and that exu- 
 berant fertility of ardent mind which their 
 composition so manifestly discovers. These 
 five pieces were written in 1641, when their 
 author was thirty-three years of age. 
 
 In the beginning of 1642, his " Animad- 
 versions/' which unquestionably were per- 
 sonal and rude, excited a reply from the pen, 
 as it was imagined, of a son of the insulted 
 bishop; and this connexion of the youthful 
 
 1 P.W. i. 154. 
 
LIFE OF MILTO1ST. 239 
 
 writer might extenuate the violence, if it 
 could not justify the calumnies of his " Mo- 
 dest confutation," as he was pleased to call 
 it, " against a slanderous and scurrilous li- 
 bel/' If this reply indeed had been pub- 
 lished with its author's name, its motives 
 would probably have atoned with Milton 
 for its virulence; and his own filial piety, af- 
 fected by the spectacle of a generous youth 
 rushing to present his bosom to the wound 
 intended for his father's, would have spared 
 the enemy, and have warned him from the 
 combat in the words of Mneas 
 
 Fallit te incautum pietas tua, &c. 
 
 But the publication was anonymous; and, 
 heaping enormous falsehoods on its adver- 
 sary's head, it attempted to overwhelm his 
 innocence with strong abuse and with ran- 
 dom accusation. 
 
 The " Apology for Smectymnuus" was the 
 result of this accumulated provocation: and 
 the call of defence made it necessary for 
 our author to relate some circumstances re- 
 specting himself of which we should other- 
 wise have been ignorant. The most ob- 
 jectionable part of this performance is that 
 which attacks Hall and his satires; its most 
 
240 LIFE OF MILTON. 
 
 splendid, an eloquent and merited eulogy 
 on the first acts of the Long Parliament. 
 
 This production seems to have closed the 
 controversy. Weapons, more effectual than 
 pens, were drawn against the Church; and, 
 exposed by the injudicious conduct of some 
 of its prelates, 1 " it fell under the assault. If 
 argument and reason could have prevailed, 
 the result would probably have been differ- 
 ent, The learning of Usher and I he wit of 
 Hall certainly preponderated in the contest; 
 and they seem to have been felt not only 
 by the Smectymnuan divines but by Milton 
 himself. The affected contempt with which 
 he speaks of " the dust and pudder in anti- 
 quity; of " his respected friends lying at 
 the mercy of a coy and flurting style;" of 
 " their antagonist vapouring them out with 
 
 k I allude, particularly, to the intemperate and most unsea- 
 sonable protest, signed by twelve bishops and drawn up -by 
 archbishop Williams, which was presented to the King and by 
 him communicated to the Lords, (on the 30th of Dec. 1641,) 
 against the legality of all the acts of the Legislature, during the 
 compulsory absence of the prelates from their places in the 
 Upper House. Archbishop Williams' s accustomed prudence and 
 moderation seem on this occasion to have deserted him: but the 
 strong return of court favour, even at this inauspicious period, 
 had not been unproductive of effect upon his conduct. In the 
 inflammable moment when it was made, this protest instantly 
 excited an explosion, .which expelled the governors of the 
 church from their seats in the Legislature, and shook the old 
 hierarchy of England to its base, 
 
LIFE OF MILTON. 241 
 
 quips and snapping adagics, and employing 
 weak arguments headed with sharp taunts/' 
 sufficiently betrays the weak points of his 
 friends, and the strong of his opponents. If 
 the Church indeed, at this crisis, could 
 have been upheld by the abilities of its sons, 
 it would have been supported by these ad- 
 mirable prelates; but numbers, exasperation 
 and enthusiasm were against them. The 
 storm raged beyond the controll of any hu- 
 man voice, and the vessel appeared to be 
 lost: she was soon however to be launched 
 again in all her graceful pride; and, favoured 
 by the breath of heaven, to pursue her pros- 
 perous course till the misconduct of her na- 
 vigators shall again endanger her; or till she 
 attain perhaps the most distant limit assigned 
 for the duration of human institutions. 
 
 The tone of this debate was far from 
 mild; and all the combatants, with the excep- 
 tion of Usher, seem to have been careless of 
 manners, and not less intent on giving pain 
 to their adversaries, than on the discovery 
 or the establishment of truth. The temper 
 of polemics and of literary disputants is, in 
 all ages, the same; but controversy had not 
 yet learned to conceal the malignity of her 
 bosom under the disguise of a polished brow 
 
 and a smiling cheek. On this occasion also 
 
 R 
 
242 LIFE OF MILTON. 
 
 many circumstances concurred, as we have 
 already remarked, to heighten that ferocity, 
 which always marks her character when in- 
 terests of important moment constitute her 
 objects. In this dispute, one party was urged 
 to the defence by every thing which educa- 
 tion or possession had endeared; while the 
 other was pressed to the attack by the recol- 
 lection of past, and by the terror of future 
 oppression. 
 
 With an ardent temper and a brilliant 
 imagination, Milton was not formed for cool 
 and temperate disputation. " I 1 could not/' 
 he says, " to my thinking, honour a good 
 cause more from the heart than by defend- 
 ing it earnestly." He talked, indeed, " m of 
 pleading against his confuter by no other 
 advocates than silence and sufferance; and 
 speaking deeds against faltering words:" but 
 his bold and sanguine nature prohibited such 
 efficient acquiescence, and hurried him into 
 active war. When his adversary called upon 
 all " Christians to stone him, as a miscreant, 
 whose impunity would be their crime," we 
 cannot reasonably wonder at the warmth of 
 his expressions, or at the little scruple with 
 which he scattered his various instruments of 
 
 1 Apol. for Smect. P. W. i. 207. "> Ibid. i. 20p. 
 
LIFE OF MILTON. 243 
 
 pain. These polemical tracts of our author, 
 though perhaps some of the least valuable of 
 his works, are so illumined with knowledge 
 and with fancy, and open to us such occa- 
 sional glimpses of a great and sublime mind, 
 that they must always be regarded as afford- 
 ing an ample compensation for any harsh- 
 ness of manner with which they may some- 
 times offend. 
 
 We have now conducted our author to a 
 period of his history, when an event took place, 
 which, by its immediate and its remote re- 
 sult, was destined to interrupt the even te- 
 nor of his domestic life, and to afflict his 
 heart to the latest moment of his existence. 
 " About Whitsuntide/' (1643) says his ne- 
 phew, " he n took a journey into the country, 
 no body about him certainly knowing the 
 reason, or that it was more than a journey of 
 recreation. After a month's stay, home he 
 returns a married man, who set out a ba- 
 chelor; his wife being Mary, the eldest daugh- 
 ter of Mr. Richard Powell, then a justice of 
 the peace, of Forest-Hill near Shotover in 
 Oxfordshire/' 
 
 Milton's matrimonial choice seems, in 
 this instance, to have been the suggestion of 
 
 n Philips, p. 18. 
 
244 LIFE OF MILTON. 
 
 fancy alone, and its consequences were those 
 which might have been expected from a con- 
 nexion so evidently imprudent. Strongly at- 
 tached with all her family to the royalist party, 
 and accustomed to the affluent hospitality of 
 her father's house, " where there was," as Au- 
 brey mentions, " a great deal of company, and 
 merriment, and dancing," the wife of Milton, 
 would not probably find much gratification 
 in the frugal establishment, the retired and 
 studious habits, or the political conversation 
 of her literary and republican husband. In 
 the event, the effect followed regularly and 
 immediately from its cause. After a month's 
 experience of her new life, to the full taste 
 of which the departure of her friends, who 
 had been present at the nuptial festivities, 
 had only just resigned her, the lady sighed 
 for the gaieties which she had left; and, ob- 
 taining permission by the earnest request of 
 her relations for a short absence, she revi- 
 sited Forest-Hill. 
 
 About this time some new pupils, whom 
 Milton had consented to admit under his 
 care, were received into his family ; and his 
 father, who had lately lived with his younger 
 son in Reading, till the taking of that town 
 in the April of the present year (16'43) by the 
 earl of Essex, now came to form a part of 
 
LIFE OF MILTON 245 
 
 the establishment in Aldersgate-street. In 
 this asylum the respectable old man resided 
 till l647> when he closed a long and useful 
 life in the embraces of a son, by whose emi- 
 nence his early cares were fully justified, and 
 by whose piety they were as affectionately 
 requited. 
 
 In the list of Milton's friends, at this pe- 
 riod, we find the names of the lady Margaret 
 Ley and of captain Dobson her husband, 
 who seem to have entertained a high value 
 for our author, and by him to have been 
 equally esteemed. The lady was the daughter 
 of sir James Ley, who, rising at the bar, was 
 advanced by James I. to the title of earl of 
 Marlborough, and to the important office of 
 High Treasurer. She was celebrated by her 
 contemporaries for her talents and her learn- 
 ing; and from Milton she received the com- 
 pliment of a sonnet, not adequate perhaps 
 to the occasion, and certainly not compar- 
 able in poetic merit to that which he had 
 written, in the preceding year, when by the 
 King's near approach the city had been 
 threatened with an assault. 
 
 As the time, limited for the return of his 
 w r ife, was now passed, he thought it neces- 
 
 The King advanced as far as Brentford, in his approach to 
 tke city, on the 13th of Nov. 1642. 
 
246 LIFE OF MILTON. 
 
 sary to \yrite to her on the subject of her en- 
 gagement. When no answer was made to 
 this and to some subsequent letters, he de- 
 termined on sending a messenger to Forest- 
 Hill. But the crisis was unpropitious to his 
 views and to the reputation of his new allies. 
 The prosperous fortunes of the King, whose 
 forces had defeated those of the Parliament 
 under Fairfax p in the north and under Wal- 
 ler" 1 in the west, had extraordinarily elated 
 the spirits of his party; and had occasioned 
 the Powells to repent of their republican 
 connexion, by which their feeling was hurt 
 and their interests might eventually be in- 
 jured. They lost no time, therefore, to atone 
 for their imprudence by breaking the offen- 
 sive alliance, and by affronting its object. 
 The husband's messenger was dismissed with 
 contempt, and his resentment, irritated by 
 these repeated wounds on his sensibility, was 
 openly set at defiance. 
 
 The measure upon which, under these cir- 
 cumstances, he resolved, was that of repudiat- 
 ing a wife, who by her desertion of him had 
 disappointed the nuptial contract of all its 
 objects, and had left with him nothing be- 
 longing to matrimony but its chain. To 
 
 v At Atherston Moor, i At Lansdown, 
 
LIFE OF MILTON. 24? 
 
 justify such a proceeding to the world, and 
 at the same time perhaps to conciliate for 
 it the countenance of the legislature, he 
 published in 1644 two editions, (one anony- 
 mously and one with his name,) of " The 
 Doctrine and Discipline of Divorce/' This 
 treatise, which was inscribed to the Parlia- 
 ment, was soon followed by " The judgment 
 of Martin Bucer concerning Divorce:" by 
 " Tetrachordon," and " Colasterion." The 
 two last of these tracts were written in 1645; 
 the latter of them as a reply to an antagonist 
 without a name, and the former as an ex- 
 position of the four passages r in the sacred 
 writings, which are supposed more immedi- 
 ately to respect the permanency of the mar- 
 riage-obligation. * 
 
 By these writings the fury of the Presby- 
 terian Clergy was instantly kindled; and, un- 
 mindful of the recent and great services, 
 which they had experienced from the an- 
 
 r Gen. i. 2?, 28. Deut. xxiv. 1, 2. Matt. v. 32, 31. 
 
 1 Cor. vii. 13 to 16. 
 
 Herbert Palmer, a member of the Assembly of Divines, in 
 a Sermon preached before the Parliament, blames the legisla- 
 ture for suffering " a wicked book deserving to be burnt, whose 
 author had been so impudent as to set his name to it, and de~ 
 dicate it to themselves, to be abroad without censure." [Todd's 
 Life of Milton.] 1 have seen this sermon, preserved in the cu- 
 rious library of James Bindley, Esq. 
 
248 LIFE OF MILTON. 
 
 thor's pen, they now assailed him, from the 
 pulpit and the press, with violent and acri- 
 monious hostility. Solicitous also to make 
 him the object of more effective vengeance, 
 they endeavoured to infuse their passions 
 into the legislature ; and actually caused 
 him to be summoned before the House of 
 Lords. From this tribunal however he was 
 soon honourably dismissed; and the Presby- 
 terian ministers were left without any con- 
 solation for the loss of an able friend, and 
 the excitement of a formidable enemy. Mil- 
 ton was now irrevocably alienated from their 
 cause; and at last he fully discovered that 
 these pretended zealots of liberty sought only 
 their own aggrandizement, and the power of 
 imposing upon others that yoke which they 
 had themselves been unable to bear. On 
 a question less incontrovertibly right, and 
 perhaps more certainly important, we shall 
 soon have occasion to notice our consistent 
 asserter of liberty in determined opposition 
 to these sanctified advocates of insurrectioij 
 and of tyranny. 
 
 On the subject of divorce he makes out a 
 strong case, and fights with arguments which 
 are not easily to be repelled. The whole con- 
 text of the Holy Scriptures, the laws of the 
 first Christian emperors, the opinions of some 
 
LIFE OF MILTON. 249 
 
 of the most eminent among the early re- 
 formers, and a projected statute of Ed- 
 ward VI are adduced by him for the pur- 
 pose of demonstrating that, by the laws of 
 God and by the inferences of the most vir* 
 tuous and enlightened men, the power of di- 
 vorce ought not to be rigidly restricted to 
 those causes which render the nuptial state 
 unfruitful, or which taint it with a spu- 
 rious offspring. Regarding mutual support 
 and comfort as the principal object of this 
 union, he contends that whatever defrauds 
 it of these ends essentially vitiates the con- 
 tract, and must necessarily justify its disso- 
 lution. " What, therefore, God hath joined, 
 let no man put asunder." " But here," says 
 our author, " the Christian prudence lies, to 
 consider what God hath joined. Shall we 
 say that God hath joined error, fraud, unfit- 
 ness, wrath, contention, perpetual loneliness, 
 perpetual discord? Whatever lust, or wine, 
 or witchery, threat or enticement, avarice or 
 ambition hath joined together, faithful or un- 
 faithful, Christian withanti-christian, hate with 
 hate, or hate with love shall we say this is 
 God's joining?" 8 In another passage he ex- 
 presses himself with the most happy energy 
 on the effect of this discordancy of character. 
 
 'Tetrac. P. W. ii. 178. 
 
250 LITE OF MILTON. 
 
 " Bat unfitness and contrariety frustrate and 
 nullify for ever, unless it be a rare chance, 
 all the good and peace of wedded conversa- 
 tion; and leave nothing between them enjoy- 
 able, but a prone and savage necessity, not 
 worth the name of marriage, unaccompanied 
 with love/' 1 
 
 Though his arguments failed, and in- 
 deed they could not reasonably hope to pro- 
 duce general conviction, their effect was far 
 from being inconsiderable; and a party, dis- 
 tinguished by the name of Miltonists, attested 
 the power of his pen, and gave consequence 
 to his pleading for divorce/ The legislature 
 however, coinciding evidently with a large 
 majority of the nation, seem to have consi- 
 dered the evil, resulting from the indisso- 
 lubleness of marriage, as not to be weighed 
 against the greater good; and their wisdom 
 permitted the abilities of Milton to be ex- 
 erted in vain against that condition of the 
 
 1 Colast. P. W. ii. 240. 
 
 * " To these things I must add., that, after his Majesty's re- 
 storation, when the subject of divorce was under consideration 
 with the Lords upon the account of John Lord Ros, or Roos, 
 his separation from his wife, Anne Pierpont, eldest daughter to 
 Henry Marquis of Dorchester, he (Milton) was consulted bj 
 an eminent member of that house,, as he was, about that time, 
 by a chief officer of state, as being the person that was knowing 
 in that affair." Wood's Fast. Oxon. p, 26 1 . 
 
LIFE OF MILTON. 
 
 contract which provided the most effectually 
 for the interests of the offspring, and which 
 offered the best means of intimately blend- 
 ing the fortunes, the tempers, and the man- 
 ners of the parents. 
 
 Milton certainly entertained the opinions, 
 which he professed ; and, to evince to the 
 world his consciousness of freedom, he pro- 
 ceeded, at this time when " x the golden 
 reins of discipline and government in the 
 church were let loose/' to prefer his addresses 
 to a beautiful and an accomplished young 
 lady, the daughter of a Doctor Davis. It has 
 been intimated that the lady was rather averse 
 from the proposed union; but her objections 
 (and her friends are not stated to have formed 
 any) seem not to have been of a very serious 
 nature, as it appears that the accomplish- 
 ment of the match was prevented solely by 
 the intervention of an extraordinary and in- 
 teresting occurrence. 
 
 The inauspicious aspect at this juncture, 
 or rather the desperate situation of the royal 
 cause, in consequence of the decisive battle 
 at Nascby/ made the family of Milton's wife 
 reluctantly sensible of the folly of their con- 
 
 * An expression in the famous Remonstrance presented by 
 the Parliament to the King at Hampton Court, on the 1st of 
 December 1 64 1 . y Jn Leicestersh ire. 
 
252 LIFE OF MILTON. 
 
 duct, and solicitous to propitiate the resent- 
 ment of an injured husband, whose assist- 
 ance might now probably be immediately 
 requisite for their protection or subsistence. 
 With no resemblance to the elevated equa- 
 nimity of the man, who had honoured them 
 with his alliance, they rose or fell, like the 
 mob of their species, with the flow or the 
 ebb of fortune, and were insolent or abject 
 as this unstable power visited or deserted 
 them. The plan for the accomplishment of 
 their purposes was conceived and executed 
 with successful ingenuity. Combining with 
 his friends, who concurred in the wish for a 
 reconciliation between the pair who had 
 been united at the altar, they watched our 
 author's visits, and as he was in the house 
 of a relation, 1 they stationed his wife in an 
 inner apartment, with instructions to appear 
 at the proper time, and to supplicate for 
 his pardon upon her knees. Faithful to the 
 lesson of her friends, she sustained her part 
 with skill, and probably with feeling. The 
 scene was surprising, and the resistance of 
 Milton, which seemed firm only for a mo- 
 ment, fell before its weighty effect. Yield- 
 ing to the entreaties of beauty, and perhaps 
 
 z The name of this relation was Blackborough, and his resi- 
 dence in the lane of St. Martin's le Grand. 
 
3LIFE OF MILTON. 53, 
 
 also to the recurrence of love, what he ap- 
 peared to concede only to the solicitations 
 of his friends, and dismissing every irritating 
 recollection from his bosom, he re-admitted 
 the wife, who had deserted and insulted him, 
 into the full possession of his affections. Not 
 satisfied with this single triumph over his re- 
 sentment, he extended his placability to those 
 who were the abettors, if not the instigators of 
 her offence; and, receiving her parents and 
 her family under his roof, he protected and 
 maintained them in this hour of their danger 
 and distress. If his interest with the victorious 
 party was unable to obtain complete immu- 
 nity for his royalist connexions, it availed to 
 save them from ruin, and to preserve the 
 bulk of a property, 11 from which he was des- 
 tined to receive not even the stipulated for- 
 tune of his wife. Conduct of so high a cha- 
 racter, the offspring of a large and a feeling 
 
 * Mr. Todd, to whose industry and accuracy I am frequently 
 indebted, says upon this occasion, " I observe in the Catalogue 
 of the lords, knights, and gentlemen, who have compounded 
 for their estates," printed at London in 1655, that he (Milton's 
 father-in-law) is thus branded as well as punished. " Richard 
 Powel, delinquent, per John Pye, esq. 5/61. \1s. 3d." Delin- 
 quent, was the usual term assigned to the Royalists by the Par- 
 liament and its adherents, and expressed the idea of disaffected 
 or failing in duty to the public cause : in this place it may mean 
 nothing more than defaulter with reference to the composition, 
 which was not. a very heavy one. 
 
254 LIFE OF MILTON. 
 
 heart, is above the ornament of any laboured 
 panegyric. Let the facts, in the intercourse 
 of Milton with the Powells, be placed dis- 
 tinctly and at once in our view, and nothing 
 but atrocious prejudice can withhold us from 
 admiring the magnanimity of the former, and 
 from despising while we pity the meanness of 
 the latter. 
 
 Milton was now reunited to his wife; but, 
 his augmented family being too large for his 
 present habitation, he was obliged to place 
 her in a friend's house till a more spacious 
 mansion, which he had recently hired in Bar- 
 bican, could be made ready for her recep- 
 tion. When the necessary preparations were 
 completed, she removed to her new resi- 
 dence; whither she was soon followed by her 
 parents and her numerous brothers and sis- 
 ters, who were not unwilling to share in the 
 entertainment which was now become requi- 
 site for their support. In this asylum they 
 continued till the question respecting their 
 property was adjusted with the government, 
 and till a period subsequent to the death of 
 the author's father in 1647- 
 
 Under the pressure of these domestic em- 
 barrassments, and of the momentous interest 
 at this crisis of the public scene, the intellect 
 of Milton, obedient to a heart actuated by 
 
LIFE OF MILTON. 255 
 
 the purest benevolence, was busy in promot- 
 ing the welfare of the human race. The year 
 1644, which saw this great man immersed in 
 his controversy about divorce, beheld him 
 also imparting to the world his ideas on the 
 subject of education, and defending, with a 
 power which has never been exceeded, that 
 great guardian of liberty and truth, the free- 
 dom of the press. 
 
 His " Treatise on Education" is addressed, 
 in the form of a letter, to Mr. Samuel Hart- 
 lib; a man to whom sir William Petty subse- 
 quently inscribed one of his first works; and 
 who was celebrated for the compass of his 
 learning, and the energy of his public spi- 
 rit. We have already had occasion to notice 
 the peculiar system of instruction adopted 
 by Milton. Convinced of the lavish expen- 
 diture of time in the public schools, where 
 the highest object proposed to hope was the 
 acquisition of the classic tongues, he con- 
 ceived it to be possible to initiate the young 
 student into science and language by the same 
 process ; and to make an acquaintance with 
 things the immediate result of an acquaint- 
 ance with words. 
 
 Between the years of twelve and twenty- 
 one, the pupil, in the schools recommended 
 by our author, was to be led through various 
 
256 LITE OF MILTON. 
 
 languages from grammar to ethics, logic, 
 rhetoric, politics, law, theology, criticism, 
 composition. Geography was to exhibit to 
 him the surface of the globe, and astronomy 
 to unfold the heavens: natural philosophy, 
 comprehending anatomy and physiology, 
 was to make him conversant with the phae- 
 nomena of nature, and with the wonders of 
 his own frame: the mathematics were to in- 
 troduce him to the sciences of architecture, 
 enginry or gunnery, fortification and navi- 
 gation; and, on his issuing into the world 
 from one of these academies, he was to be 
 accomplished for any duty, to which his 
 country might summon him, in the pulpit 
 or at the bar, in the senate or in the field. 
 During the course of these studies, which 
 visited every region of science, the body of 
 the student was to receive its share of culti- 
 vation, to be maintained in health by tem- 
 perance and to be invigorated by exertion. 
 The exercises, directed on this occasion, were 
 to be of a military nature, " to instruct the 
 youth in the exact use of their weapons, and 
 in the rudiments of their soldiership/' After 
 their exercises and their meals, " their spi- 
 rits were to be recreated and composed with 
 solemn and divine harmonies of music heard 
 or learnt; and their minds sent back to study 
 
LIFE OF MILTON. 257 
 
 in good tune and satisfaction/' These insti- 
 tutions, in short, were to resemble the old 
 philosophic schools of Greece, with the rare 
 advantage of uniting the martial gymnasia 
 of Sparta with the Academus and Lyceum 
 of Athens. 
 
 This must be allowed to be a magnificent 
 plan of education: but we believe it to be 
 calculated only to amuse the fancy, while it 
 would be found by experience to disappoint 
 the expectation. It was suited however 
 to the gigantic mind of Milton, which from 
 its own altitude could not distinguish small 
 difficulties, and in its pride of power could 
 not easily condescend to the effects of infe- 
 rior capacity. That he was fully persuaded 
 of the practicability of his system cannot 
 well be doubted. " I shall detain you/' he 
 says to Hartlib, " now no longer in the de- 
 monstration of what we should not do, but 
 strait conduct ye to a hill-side, where I will 
 point ye out the right path of a virtuous and 
 noble education; laborious indeed at the 
 first ascent, but else so smooth, so green, so 
 full of goodly prospect and melodious sounds 
 on every side, that the harp of Orpheus was 
 not more charming. I doubt not but we shall 
 have more ado to drive our dullest and la- 
 ziest youth, our stocks and stubs from the 
 
5258 LIFE OF MILTON. 
 
 infinite desire of such a happy nurture, than 
 we have now to hale and drag our choicest 
 and hopefullest wits to that asinine feast of 
 sow-thistles and brambles, which is com- 
 monly set before them as all the food and 
 entertainment of their tenderest and most 
 docible age/' 
 
 This treatise, though offering to us a 
 scheme which in its entire extent we must 
 reject as not reducible to practice, is yet 
 made valuable by the hints, suggested in it, 
 for the improvement of our established mode 
 of education. In the higher classes of our 
 public schools, more attention, as it would be 
 prejudice to deny, might advantageously be 
 given to science; and in these seminaries, 
 the diet and exercises of our youth might 
 be better regulated with reference to health, 
 and to the perfection of their bodies. This 
 little piece is written in an easier and a 
 purer style than the preceding works of its 
 author: but in every species of merit it 
 must yield to another composition produced, 
 nearly about the same time, by the same pen, 
 and addressed to the Parliament with the 
 title of " Areopagitica, or a speech for the 
 liberty of unlicensed printing/' 
 
 The Presbyterians, as we have already 
 
 fc Mil. P.W. i. 276. 
 
LIFE OF MILTON. 259 
 
 remarked, on their rising in these agitated 
 times into power, quickly forgot the prin- 
 ciples which they had professed in their ad- 
 versity; and, declaring against unlimited to- 
 leration, discovered by their readiness to vio- 
 late the rights of others that their tenderness 
 was only for their own. The press was too 
 great a power not to be seized by these im- 
 postors of liberty; and, abusing their ascend- 
 ancy in parliament* they placed this formi- 
 dable engine under the same controll of 
 which they had lately so indignantly com- 
 plained. They were satisfied, in short, that 
 the press when it belonged to the church 
 could not be too free, or, when it was pos- 
 sessed by themselves^ too solicitously con- 
 fined. Against these apostate-patriots, who 
 betrayed their cause with the sanctity of 
 profaned religion, Milton now advanced as 
 the champion of free discussion; and the ef- 
 fect of his zeal in this instance, for the inte- 
 rests of genuine liberty, has received the una- 
 nimous acclamation of the world. A strong 
 cause was never more powerfully defended ; 
 and truth, in the " Areopagitica," is armed 
 by reason and by fancy with weapons which 
 are effective with their weight and edge, while 
 they dazzle us with their brightness. 
 
 This masterly and eloquent composition 
 
260 LIFE OF MILTON. 
 
 is opened with the most conciliating address; 
 and its arguments, which are individually 
 strong, derive so much force 'from their mu- 
 tual support in a close and advantageous 
 array, as to be absolutely irresistible and im- 
 periously to compel our conviction. Show- 
 ing that fetters for the press were first con- 
 trived by the papal tyranny, and wrought 
 to their ultimate perfection by the Spanish 
 Inquisition, the pleader for liberty proceeds 
 to prove that these shackles are injurious to 
 religious and moral truth, w r hich may be be- 
 nefited and cannot be injured by any con- 
 flict with falsehood: that the circulation of 
 flagitious writings cannot be prohibited by 
 any restraints upon the press, while the of- 
 fensive suspicion offers an insult to the com- 
 munity and a discouragement to the learned: 
 that, admitting the entire command of the 
 press to be attainable, as it certainly is not, 
 no good would result from the circumstance 
 to morals, as the means of corrupt commu- 
 nication would still be infinitely numerous; 
 
 c The turbulent and profligate Sixtus IV, whose enormities 
 were exceeded only by those of Alexander VI, was the first who 
 placed the press under the controll of a state inquisitor, or, in 
 other words, appointed a licenser of it. He died in 1484, after 
 having disgraced the Roman see, and disturbed Italy during 
 the space of thirteen years. This is not specified by Milton, 
 but was the fact. 
 
LIFE OF MILTON. 
 
 and as, after all, not ignorance but rejection 
 of vice constitutes virtue : that " Adam's 
 doom seems to have been that of knowing 
 good by evil; and that a fugitive and clois- 
 tered virtue was not to he praised, a virtue 
 unexercised and unbreathed, that never sal- 
 lies out and sees her adversary, but slinks 
 out of the race where that immortal garland 
 is to be run for not without dust and heat." 
 These are some of his arguments against 
 those, who affected to consider the restraint 
 of the press as the protection of religion and 
 morals. 
 
 To the jealousy of government, demand- 
 ing an enslaved press, he replies with incon- 
 trovertible truth; " that a state, governed by 
 the rules of justice and fortitude, or a church, 
 built and founded upon the rock of faith 
 and true knowledge cannot be so pusillani- 
 mous" as to dread the most unlimited free- 
 dom of discussion. " d I deny not," says the 
 eloquent pleader, " but that it is of great 
 concernment in the church and common- 
 wealth to have a vigilant eye how books de- 
 inean themselves as well as men, and there- 
 after to confine, imprison, and do sharpest 
 justice on them as malefactors: for b cks 
 are not absolutely dead things, but d^ x 
 
 d P. W. i, 289. 
 
26% LIFE OF MILTON. 
 
 tain a potency of life in them to be as active 
 as that soul was, whose progeny they are: 
 naj% they do preserve, as in a viol, the purest 
 efficacy and extraction of that living intellect 
 that bred them. I know they are as lively, 
 and as vigorously productive as those fabu- 
 lous dragon's tet'th; and. being sown up and 
 down, may chance to spring up armed men. 
 And yet on the other hand, unless wariness 
 be used, as good almost kill a man as kill a 
 good book: who kills a man kills a reason- 
 able creature, God's image; but he who de- 
 stroys a good book, kills reason itself, kills 
 the image of God, as it were, in the eye. 
 Many a man lives a burden to the earth: 
 but a good book is the precious life-blood of 
 a master-spirit, embalmed and treasured up 
 on purpose to a life beyond a life. 'Tis true 
 no age can restore a life, whereof perhaps 
 there is no great loss; and revolutions of ages 
 do not oft recover the loss of a rejected truth, 
 for the want of which whole nations fare the 
 worse. We should be wary therefore what 
 persecution we raise against the living la- 
 bours of public men; how we spill that sea- 
 soned life of man preserved and stored up in 
 books; since we see a kind of homicide may 
 be thus committed, sometimes a martyrdom, 
 and, if it extend to the whole impression, a 
 
LIFE OF MILTON. 263 
 
 kind of massacre; whereof the execution ends 
 not in the slaying of an elemental life, but 
 strikes at that ethereal and fifth essence, the 
 breath of reason itself, and slays an immor- 
 tality rather than a life/' 
 
 Nothing can be more consonant with the 
 general interests of the community than our 
 author's liberal yet guarded plan. Let the 
 press be as free as the air or the light of hea- 
 ven: without the check of a question, let it 
 pour its good and its bad into the world; but 
 let the names of those by whom it is em- 
 ployed be in the hands of the public to en- 
 sure a proper responsibility to the laws for 
 any infringement of good order, for what- 
 ever violation may be offered to morals or 
 to the peace of individuals. By the strict 
 confinement of this diffuser of opinion, if in 
 truth it were practicable among an active 
 and enlightened people, a doubtful and fal- 
 lacious tranquillity might probably be ob- 
 tained: but it would be the repose of bar- 
 barous ignorance; it would be stagnation 
 and not calm ; it would be diseased and me- 
 lancholy slumber, separated by infinite de- 
 grees from that strong and active and spark- 
 ling health which, in the intellectual and the 
 moral not less than in the natural world, is 
 maintained as it is produced by agitation 
 
264 LIFE OF MILTON. 
 
 and ferii^ent, by opposition and conflict. In 
 that dissonance of religious and political hos- 
 tility, which excited the alarm of the timor- 
 ous and the bigoted in the convulsed and 
 distracted times of our author, he could dis- 
 tinguish nothing but the sprightly vigour 
 of a young people, exulting in the exercise 
 of their powers, " casting off the old and 
 wrinkled skin of corruption, waxing young 
 again, entering the glorious ways of truth 
 and prosperous virtue, and destined to be- 
 come great and honourable in these latter 
 days/' " Methinks I see in my mind/' says 
 the advocate of freedom in a strong burst of 
 eloquence, " a noble and puissant nation 
 rousing herself, like the strong man after 
 sleep, and shaking her invincible locks: me- 
 thinks I see her, as an eagle, muing her 
 mighty youth, and kindling her undazzled 
 eyes at the full midday beam; purging and 
 unsealing her long abused sight at the foun- 
 tain itself of heavenly radiance, while the 
 whole noise of timorous and flocking birds, 
 with those also that love the twilight flutter 
 about amazed at what she means." 6 
 
 His attack on presbyterian inconsistency 
 
 e P. W. i. 324. The passage should have ended here with 
 <' means." The imagery is spoilt and broken by the concluding 
 words, " sects and schisms." 
 
LIFE OF MILTON. 265 
 
 is strong and irresistible. " Who cannot dis- 
 cern the fineness of this politic drift, and 
 who are the contrivers? that while the bi- 
 shops were to be baited down, then all 
 presses might be open; it was the people's 
 birth-right and privilege in time of parlia- 
 ment; it was the breaking forth of light. 
 But now, the bishops abrogated and voided 
 out of the church, as if our reformation sought 
 no more but to make room for others into 
 their seats under another name, the episco- 
 pal arts begin to bud again: the cruse of 
 truth must run no more oil ; liberty of print- 
 ing must be enthralled under a prelalical 
 commission of twenty; the privilege of the 
 people nullified, and, which is worse, the 
 freedom of learning must groan again and to 
 her old fetters/' f The language of this com- 
 position is every where lucid and elevated, 
 figurative and impressive; and, though not 
 entirely free from learned idioms and con- 
 structions, 8 for the age in which it was writ- 
 ten it is remarkably pure, and sufficient to 
 entitle the writer to a high place among the 
 masters of style. 
 
 f p.w. i. 315. 
 
 Such as " For which Britain hears ill abroad." " But is 
 become a dividual movement." " And me perhaps each of 
 these dispositions, as the subject was whereon I entered, have 
 at other times variously affected/' &c. &c. 
 
266 LIFE OF MILTON. 
 
 Though the Presbyterians in parliament 
 had power to resist the force of this eloquent 
 reasoning, it could not be heard without ef- 
 fect. If however it covered the faces of these 
 traitors to their cause with shame, it was un- 
 able to bend their hearts into contrition. That 
 egregious insult on freedom and the commu- 
 nity, a licenser of the press, was certainly con- 
 tinued throughout the whole duration of their 
 power: though in 1649 we find Gilbert Mab- 
 bot h conscientiously resigning this invidious 
 
 h The account of this transaction is preserved by Dr. Birch, 
 and from him I shall transcribe it. 
 
 " Gilbert Mabbot continued in his office till May 22, 1649, 
 when, as Mr. Whitelocke observes, " upon his desire, and rea- 
 sons against licensing of books to be printed, he was discharged 
 of that employment." And we find a particular account of the 
 affair in a weekly paper, printed in 4to, and intitled, " A per- 
 fect diurnall of some passages in parliament, and the daily pro- 
 ceedings of the army under his excellency the lord Fairfax. 
 From Monday May 21 to Monday May 28, 1649. Collected for 
 the satisfaction of such as desire to be truly informed, N 304." 
 In which, under Tuesday May 28, p. 2531, we read as fol- 
 lows : " Mr. Mabbot hath long desired several members of the 
 house, and lately the Council of State, to move the house, 
 that he might be discharged of licensing books for the future 
 upon the reasons following, viz, 
 
 " I. Because many thousand of scandalous and malignant 
 pamphlets have been published with his name thereunto, as if 
 he had licensed the same (though he never saw them) on purpose 
 (as he conceives) to prejudice him in his reputation amongst the 
 honest party of this nation. 
 
 ff II. Because that employment (as he conceives) is unjust 
 
LIFE OF MILTONT. 26? 
 
 and indeed impracticable office, and bor- 
 rowing the motives and the defence of his 
 conduct from the work, to which we have 
 been attending. 
 
 We have already noticed that, in the year 
 (1645) succeeding the publication of this 
 piece, our author's controversy on the sub- 
 ject of divorce was brought to a conclusion; 
 and that the re-union of himself and his wife, 
 
 and illegall, as to the end of its first institution, viz. to stop 
 the presse for publishing any thing, that might discover the 
 corruption of church and state in the time of popery, episcopacy, 
 and tyranny, the better to keep the people in ignorance, and 
 carry on their popish, factious, and tyrannical designs, for the 
 enslaving and destruction both of the bodies and souls of all the 
 free people of this nation. 
 
 (( III. Because licensing is as great a monopoly as ever was 
 in this nation, in that all men's judgments, reasons, &c. are to 
 be bound up in the licenser's (as to licensing:) for if the author 
 of any sheete, booke, or treatise, ^x r rote not to please the fancy, 
 and come within the compasse of the licenser's judgment, then he 
 is not to receive any stamp of authority for publishing thereof. 
 
 " IV. Because it is lawfull (in his judgment) to print any 
 booke, sheete, &c. without licensing, so as the authors and prin- 
 ters do subscribe their true names thereunto, that so they may be 
 liable to answer the contents thereof ; and if they offend therein, 
 then to be punished by such lawes, as are or shall be for those 
 cases provided. 
 
 " A Committee of the Council of State being satisfied with 
 these and other reasons of M. Mabbot concerning licensing, the 
 council of state reports to the house; upon which the house 
 ordered this day, that the said M. Mabbot should be discharged 
 of licensing books for the future." 
 
 Birch's Life of Milt. p. xxvu 
 
268 LITE OF MILTOX. 
 
 which subsequently took place, was effected 
 by means as little reputable to the lady's 
 relations as they were honourable to him- 
 self In this year he discovered that the 
 Muse, whom he had for so long a time de- 
 serted, was still dear to him. From the pe- 
 riod of his returning to England, the pastoral, 
 which he had hung upon the tomb of his 
 friend, Charles Deodati, was the only poem 
 of any length which he had composed. The 
 discharge of his serious duties had not ad- 
 mitted of his indulging in his favourite re- 
 creation; and his occupations had been of 
 too stubborn and harsh a nature to blend 
 with the fine visions of imagination, or to 
 melt into the harmony of poetry. Some 
 sonnets however he had occasionally pro- 
 duced ; and in the year now in question he 
 found so much time to respire, after his do- 
 mestic and his public contests, as to be able 
 to prepare an edition of all his English, Ita- 
 lian and Latin poems. Of this small volume, 
 which was sent into the world with the au- 
 thor's name and with a preface by the pub- 
 lisher, Humphrey Moseley, the principal 
 pieces have already been made the subjects 
 of our remark. The novelties therefore of 
 this collection, which are chiefly the sonnets, 
 have now the only claim to our attention. 
 
LIFE OF MILTON. 269 
 
 The sonnet, as is generally known, is al- 
 together of Italian origin; and its structure 
 is ascertained with so much rigid precision 
 as to be insusceptible of any, or only of the 
 most trifling variation. Of the fourteen 
 lines, of which it is to consist, the first eight 
 are to admit one change only of rhyme for 
 their termination; and are to be distributed 
 into two stanzas, of which the first verse 
 chimes with the last, and the two interme- 
 diate ones with each other. The six con- 
 cluding lines may either be confined within 
 terminations of two similar sounds alter- 
 nately arranged, or may be disposed, with 
 two additional rhymes, into a quatrain and 
 a couplet. 1 Like every short poem, the son- 
 net requires strict unity of subject; but it 
 solicits ornament from variety of thought, 
 on the indispensible condition of a perfect 
 subordination. The sentence may overflow 
 the verse, but must not transgress the stanza. 
 
 1 Milton has not always observed this arrangement of the ter- 
 minations in the six concluding lines. In his sonnet to Fairfax, 
 he has formed the first four of these lines into a third stanza, of 
 a similar construction with the two preceding ones; and he has 
 made the two last lines to rhyme with the two which imme- 
 diately go before them. In his sonnet to Cromwell, he has dis- 
 posed these six verses into a similar stanza, and a couplet with a 
 new rhyme. He seems to have regarded the order of this part of 
 the sonnet as submitted in a great degree to his discretion. 
 
270 LIFE OF MILTON. 
 
 This little poem is impressible with various 
 characters; and, while with Petrarch it is 
 tender and pathetic, with Dante in equal 
 consistency with its nature it is elevated and 
 forcible. Peculiarly adapted to the language 
 and the taste of its native Italy, it has been 
 considered, though in my opinion without 
 sufficient reason, as insuperably unaccom- 
 modated to those of Britain. When happily 
 constructed, it will be found to gratify every 
 English ear, attuned to the harmony of verse; 
 and the idea, which it suggests, of difficulty 
 encountered and overcome must contribute, 
 as has been more than once remarked, to 
 heighten the power of its effect. 
 
 During the prevalence of our Italian 
 school of poetry, this short and pregnant 
 composition was much in favour with our 
 bards; and in the childhood, as it may be 
 called, of the English Muse, it was made 
 the vehicle of his love by the tender, the 
 gallant, the accomplished and the ill-fated 
 Surrey . k In the succeeding generation, the 
 
 k From the notoriety of the fact, it can scarcely be necessary 
 to inform the reader,, that this ornament of the English nobility, 
 (Henry Howard, eldest son of Thomas duke of Norfolk,) fell a 
 victim, in the flower of his age, to the jealousy of that capricious 
 and remorseless tyrant, Henry VIII. 
 
 When I speak of Surrey as a sonnetteer, I either take the fact 
 
LIFE OF MILTON. 271 
 
 sonnet was constructed, though not with rigid 
 accuracy, by Sidney, Spenser, Shakspeare, 
 and still more happily by Drummond, the 
 peculiar object, as it would seem, of Milton's 
 applause and imitation. By Milton this mi- 
 nute poem has frequently been animated 
 with a great and mighty soul. That which 
 
 on the credit of others, or I adopt the Vague language of writers, 
 who call every short poem, comprised within fourteen lines, a 
 sonnet. Surrey has justly been honoured by Mr. Warton with 
 the title of our first English classic: but I am not acquainted 
 with one regular sonnet, which he has constructed. I am far 
 from being profoundly conversant with our old English poets j and 
 therefore the reader will be the less surprised when I tell him 
 that Drummond is the earliest writer of the true sonnet whom I 
 can properly be said to know. One of the sonnets of this admir- 
 able genius, addressed to the Nightingale, is so beautiful that I 
 must be allowed to gratify myself by transcribing it. 
 
 TO THE NIGHTINGALE. 
 
 Sweet bird, that sing'st away the early hours 
 Of winter, past or coming, void of care, 
 Well pleased with delights which present are, 
 
 Fair seasons, budding sprays, sweet-srnelling flower* : 
 
 To rocks to springs, to rills, from leafy bowers 
 Thou thy Creator's goodness dost declare, 
 And what dear gifts to thee he did not spare j 
 
 A stain to human sense in guilt that lowers. 
 
 What soul can be so sick, which by thy songs, 
 Attired in sweetness, sweetly is not driven 
 
 Quite to forget earth's turmoils, spite and wrongs, 
 And lift a reverend eye and thought to heaven? 
 
 Sweet artless songster! thou my mind dost raise 
 
 To airs of spheres, yes, and to angels' lays. 
 
272 LIFE OF MILTON. 
 
 he wrote " when the assault was. intended to 
 the city/' and those which he addressed to 
 Cyriac Skinner, (the grandson of the great 
 lord Coke,) to Fairfax, to Vane, and to Crom- 
 well are eminent for their vigour and lofti- 
 ness. Some greater accuracy perhaps might 
 be required in the finishing of these short 
 poems; but they are conceived and executed 
 in a grand and broad style. Like a small 
 statue by the chisel of Lysippus or a minia- 
 ture from the pencil of Angelo, they demon- 
 strate that the idea of greatness may be excited 
 independently of the magnitude of size. 
 
 The distinguishing qualities of our au- 
 thor's genius are generally known to be ele- 
 vation and power; and he is certainly never 
 more in his proper employment and station 
 than when he is sporting in the tempest, and 
 hovering in infinite space. Descending how- 
 ever into the regions of tenderness and grace, 
 he can contract the action of his giant hands 
 to the braiding of a wreath, or to the fashion- 
 ing of a gem. If this were not sufficiently 
 attested by his I/ Allegro, II Penseroso, and 
 parts of his Comus and of his great Epic, we 
 might rest our proof of it on the testimony of 
 those little pieces which are now under our 
 notice. His sonnet to the nightingale is sweet; 
 that on his deceased wife is pathetic, and 
 
LIFE OF MILTON. 
 
 that to Mr. Lawrence is elegant and pleas- 
 ing. These short sallies of Milton's poetic 
 power are not all indeed equally success- 
 ful ; and a few of them may be acknow- 
 ledged even to have failed. If we except 
 however the eleventh, written evidently as a 
 sportive struggle to bend knotty words into 
 rhyme, we shall not find one of these minor 
 poems unornamented with beautiful, or un- 
 dignified with strong, or unelevated with 
 sublime thoughts. The lines in many of 
 them are careless and inharmonious ; and 
 the merit of some of the finest among them 
 is diminished by the injury of an inadequate 
 or defective close. If the sonnet to Crom- 
 well had been finished with the same spirit 
 and taste with which it was begun, it would 
 have been of unrivalled excellence: it would 
 indeed have been a precious stone, with its 
 worth infinitely enhanced by the exquisite 
 sculpture on its surface of an Olympian 
 Jove. 1 On the subject of this fine sonnet, it 
 has been justly remarked by bishop Hurd 
 that the beautiful hemistich in the ninth line 
 is vitiated by an impropriety of metaphor. 
 
 1 My meaning in this passage may be liable to mistake. The 
 remark in it is applied solely to the Cromwell of the poet, and not 
 to the Cromwell of history. 
 
274 LIFE OF MILTON. 
 
 And Dunbar field resounds thy praises loud, 
 And Worcester's laureat wreath. 
 
 Though we have noticed in this place all 
 the sonnets of Milton, it may be proper to 
 mention that only ten of them were included 
 in the publication of which we are now speak- 
 ing, the rest having been composed at a sub- 
 sequent period. Five of them indeed, viz. 
 those to Fairfax, to Cromwell, to Vane, and 
 to Cyriac Skinner, (who was honoured with 
 two of these poetical addresses,) were with- 
 drawn for a considerable period from the 
 public. They were annexed by Philips to 
 his life of his uncle; and, about four years 
 afterwards, four of them were transcribed by 
 Toland into his work on the same biogra- 
 phical subject: but they were again omitted 
 in some of the following editions, and seemed 
 to be in danger of falling under the proscrip- 
 tion of the execrable spirit of party. Fac- 
 tion however has not been able to add this 
 injury to the many which it has inflicted on 
 us; and, in this remoter age, we are not di- 
 verted by the political offence of these son- 
 nets from the admiration of their poetical 
 excellence. In the second of the two ad- 
 dressed to Cyriac Skinner is exhibited such 
 a sublime picture of the author's resignation, 
 fortitude, loftiness of soul y and ardent zeal 
 
 
LIFE OF MILTON. 2J5 
 
 for the great interests of his species as must 
 necessarily conciliate our reverence and re- 
 gard, even if it should fail of exciting the 
 stronger feeling of our wonder. 171 
 
 Of this edition of his poems Milton pre- 
 sented a copy to the Bodleian library: but 
 the volume being by some accident lost, 
 
 m I may add in a note what might be considered as too 
 great an interruption of my subject in the body of the work. 
 Though the regular sonnet has not been a favourite with the pre- 
 sent times; and has seen its name, without its power, usurped by 
 a poem of fourteen lines in the elegiac stanza, it has been con- 
 structed with eminent success by more than one of those ladies, 
 whose poetic talents have formed a distinguishing feature in the 
 character of our immediate age. It will be obvious that I allude 
 more particularly to a few exquisite sonnets from the pen of Mrs. 
 Charlotte Smith, and to a greater number of them from that of 
 Miss Seward, the merit of which has been acknowledged and 
 ratified by the taste of an applauding public. But I wish to ex- 
 plain that I allude also to another female Muse, whose name is 
 yet unknown to the world, who can no longer warble her melo- 
 dies upon earth, and who is now in that place to which human 
 praise in its highest elevation can never ascend. When the reader 
 has perused the following sonnet, chosen from others in my pos- 
 session solely for the melancholy, I had almost said the prophetic 
 peculiarity of its subject, let him know that the writer of it was 
 only in the middle of her twelfth year, and that, when she had 
 just completed her fourteenth, she closed a life as amiable for 
 piety and sweetness as it was remarkable for genius. Let him 
 know likewise that this sonnet, which was once read by me with 
 exquisite delight, not unmingled perhaps with pride, is now 
 transcribed by me with tears, which can never cease to flow 
 when the idea obtrudes itself of the daughter whom I lately had, 
 and have no more. 
 
LIFE OF MILTON. 
 
 John House," the principal librarian, wrote 
 to solicit a repetition of the gift. The re- 
 quest was of too flattering a nature to be 
 refused ; and to the book, which he sent in 
 compliance with it, the author gave addi- 
 tional value by inscribing its first page with 
 a Latin ode; a composition entitled to con- 
 siderable though not to unqualified praise. 
 Its irregularity of measure, for which any 
 classical authority, even among the choruses 
 of the Greek dramatists, would be vainly 
 sought, must certainly be admitted in dimi- 
 
 ON A BLIGHTED ROSE-BUD. 
 
 Scarce had thy velvet lips imbibed the dew, 
 . And Nature hail'd thee infant queen of May; 
 
 Scarce saw thine opening bloom the sun's broad ray, 
 And to the air its tender fragrance threw, 
 When the north wind enamour'd of thee grew; 
 
 And by his cold, rude kiss thy charms decay : 
 Now droops thy head, now fades thy blushing hue 
 
 No more the queen of flowers, no longer gay. 
 So blooms a maid, her guardians health and joy 
 
 Her mind array' d in innocency's vest 
 When suddenly, impatient to destroy, 
 
 Death clasps the virgin to his iron breast. 
 She fades the parent, sister, friend, deplore 
 The charms and budding virtues now no more ! 
 Nov. 27, isoo. CAROLINE SYMMONS. 
 
 n John Rouse or Russe, A. M. Fellow of Oriel College, Ox- 
 ford, was elected chief librarian of the Bodleian may 9* 1620. 
 He died in April 1652. WARTON, 
 
LIFE OF MILTON. 27? 
 
 nu lion of its merit. But its diction is pure 
 and, equally with its matter, eminently poetic. 
 As it exhibits the last effort of Milton's Ro- 
 man muse, and has not perhaps experienced 
 sufficient attention, the reader will pardon me. 
 for transcribing some of its stanzas, as I can 
 gratify him, at the same time, with a transla- 
 tion of them by the elegant pen of my friend 
 Francis Wrangham. 
 
 STROPHE I. 
 
 Gemelle cultu simplici gaudens liber, 
 
 Fronte licet gemina, 
 
 Munditieqiie nitens non operosa; 
 
 Quern raanus attulit 
 
 Juvenilis olim, 
 
 Sedula tamen haud nimii poetaej 
 
 Dum vagus Ausonias nunc per umbras, 
 
 Nunc Britannica per vireta lusit, 
 
 Insons populi, barbitoque devius 
 
 Indulsit patrioj mox itidem pectine Daunio 
 
 Longinquum intonuit melos 
 
 Yicinis, et humum vix tetigit pede. 
 
 Go, Book, with one informing mind 
 
 Living beneath a twofold face : P 
 
 And, studious of no alien grace, 
 Go plain, and speak what once the youth design'dj 
 
 The few verses which he wrote under Cromwell's picture, 
 and addressed to Christina, form too slight an exception in this 
 instance to be worthy of notice. 
 
 P This volume had a double title-page, one prefixed to the 
 Latin and one to the English poems. 
 
LIFE OF MILTON. 
 
 While 'mid Ausonia's classic shade 
 
 Reclined, or in some native glade, 
 
 Yet guiltless of his country's ire, 
 
 He struck on Rome's or Albion's lyre : 
 Or roused the thunder of the Tuscan chord, 
 And, spurning earth's low tracts, through fields empyreal 
 soar'd. 
 
 STROPHE II. 
 
 Modo quis deus, aut editus deo, 
 
 Pristinam gentis miseratus indolem, 
 
 (Si satis noxas luimus priores, 
 
 Mollique luxu degener otium,) 
 
 Tollat nefandos civium tumultus, 
 
 Almaque revocet studia sanctusj 
 
 Et relegatas sine sede Musas 
 
 Jam pene totis finibus Angligenum j 
 
 Immundasque volucres, 
 
 Unguibus imminentes, 
 
 Figat Apollinea pharetra, 
 
 Phineamque abigat pestem procul amne Pegaseo? 
 
 Would but some heavenly power, 
 
 In pity of our prostrate fame, 
 
 (If sorrow yet hath purged our name 
 And woe's atoning pang hath had its hour,) 
 
 Quell the fierce crowd's unhallow'd roar, 
 
 And back to their loved haunts restore 
 
 The banish'd Nine, who drooping roam 
 
 Without a comforter or home j 
 Wing his keen shaft against the noisome race, 
 And far from Delphi's stream the harpy mischief chase. 
 
 ANTISTROPHE. 
 
 Quin tu, libelle, nuntii licet mala 
 
 Fide vel oscitantia 
 
 Semel erraveris agmine fratrum, 
 
LIFE OF MJLTOK. 279 
 
 Seu quts te teneat specus, 
 Seu qua te latebra, forsan unde vili 
 Callo tereris institoris insulsi, 
 Laetare felix : en iterum tibi 
 Spes nova fulget, posse profundam 
 Fugere Lethen, vehique superam 
 In Jovis aulam remige penna. 
 
 But thou rejoice, dear bookj 
 
 Though late purloin'd by pilfering hand, 
 
 Or wandering from thy brother-band, 
 Thou lurkest now in some inglorious nook : 
 
 In some vile den thy honours torn, 
 
 Or by some palm mechanic worn ; 
 
 Rejoice ! for lo ! new hopes arise, 
 
 That thou again may'st view the skies 5 
 From Lethe's pool oblivious burst to day, 
 And win on " sail-broad vans" to highest heaven thy way. 
 
 ANTISTROPHE. 
 
 Ergo tu visere lucos 
 
 Musarum ibis amoenos; 
 
 Diamque Phoebi rursus ibis in domum, 
 
 Oxonia quam valle colit, 
 
 Delo posthabitA 
 
 Bifidoque Parnassi jugo : 
 
 Ibis honestus, 
 
 Postquam egregiam tu quoque sortem 
 
 Nactus abis, dextri prece sollicitatus amici. 
 
 Illic legeris inter alta nomina 
 
 Auctorum, Graiae simul et Latinae 
 
 Antiqua gentis lumina et verum decus. 
 
 'Tis thine to hail the groves, 
 
 Her vale's green charms where Oxford spreads . 
 
 Thine her fair domes and velvet meads, 
 Which more than his own Delos Phoebus loves, 
 
280 LIFE OF MILTON. 
 
 Than Pindus more : and thine, proud choice ! 
 (Since thou by friendship's partial voice 
 Art call'd to join the immortal band,) 
 'Mid many an honour'd bard to stand ; 
 Bards of old Greece and conquering Rome the pride, 
 Whose names shall float for aye on time's o'erwhelming tide. 
 
 EPODOS. 
 
 Vos, tandem, haud vacui mei labores, 
 
 Quicquid hoc sterile fudit ingenium, 
 
 Jam serb placidam sperare jubeo 
 
 Perfunctam invidia requiem sedesque beatas, 
 
 Quas bonus Hermes 
 
 Et tutela dabit solers Roiisi ; 
 
 Quo neque lingua procax vulgi penetrabit, atque longe 
 
 Turba legentum prava facesset: 
 
 At ultimi nepotes 
 
 Et cordatior setas 
 
 Judicia rebus aequiora forsitan 
 
 Adhibebit, integro sinu. 
 
 Turn, livore sepulto, 
 
 Si quid meremur sana posteritas sciet, 
 
 Roiisio favente. 
 
 And ye my other toils, 
 
 Not toil'd in vain some distant day 
 
 From envy's fang shall speed your way, 
 Where Rouse protects and favouring Hermes smiles: 
 
 There nor the rabble shall revile, 
 
 Nor factious critics pour their bile; 
 
 But, hoarded to a happier age, 
 
 A purer race shall scan the page; 
 With heart unwarp'd your humble worth regard, 
 Trample on Spleen's wan corse, and bless the patriot-bard. 
 
 Mr. Warton has favoured us with only 
 one critical remark on any part of the struc- 
 
LIFE OF MILTON". 281 
 
 ture of this ode. On the seventy-eighth line 
 " Et tutela dabit solers Roiisi," the critic ob- 
 serves, " If he meant this verse for an hen- 
 decasyllable, there is a false quantity in so- 
 lers. The first syllable is notoriously long/' 
 This single observation, which would lead us 
 to suspect that Mr. Walton's q acquaintance 
 with the Greek and Roman metres was not 
 very profound, has induced me to offer, in 
 a note/ a more extensive piece of criticism 
 on this wild and lawless composition. 
 
 i Mr. Walton's observations, on our author's Latin prose com- 
 position, discover the critic to be ill qualified for the office which 
 he has undertaken, and his dogmatic censure of all Milton's prose 
 writings, (with a gracious exception indeed in favour of the 
 " Tractate on Education '* and the " Areopagitica,") betrays the 
 want of taste in nearly as great a degree as it does the predo- 
 minancy of prejudice. Of the opinions which, in the circle of 
 his college-admirers and elated by partial applause, Mr. \V. has 
 thus ventured to hazard, I will not abuse the reader's or my own 
 time by condescending to take any further notice. They are to 
 be found p. 571 of the ed. of Milton's Juvenile Poems. 
 
 r When he constructed this ode to Rouse, which is now a wild 
 chaos of verses and no verses heaped together confusedly and 
 licentiously, Milton must be regarded as imprudent for not having 
 taken any one model of acknowledged authority, by a perfect 
 assimilation to which, in the construction and the combination 
 of his metres, he might have secured himself from error and re- 
 prehension. Inattentive or lawless he must certainly be deemed, 
 either for not noticing or for not following the rule of systema- 
 tizing, which the moderation of the Latin poets chose to affect, 
 rather than to indulge in that inexhaustible variety, that rapid 
 
282 LITE OF MILTON. 
 
 In the year in which this was written^ 
 
 interchange of numbers, which enchants and astonishes in the 
 tragic solemnity of the chorus of the Grecian Muse, or in the wild 
 roll of her dithyrambic. This preference of a system may be 
 observed amongst all, even the latest of the Roman poets j though 
 exceptions to it will be found in two or three choruses in Seneca's 
 plays (Agam. 5QO. 81O. CEdip. 403), which at the same time 
 exhibit transgressions of every rule of metre and of rhythm. To 
 disapprove then of the general plan and construction of this 
 ode is only to admit that, in matters of this nature, innovation 
 is dangerous and to be avoided : for, in compositions in the clas- 
 sical languages, what is without precedent may be contrary to 
 principle ; and in every department of knowledge the vague sur- 
 mises of probability, which are doubtful, must not be balanced 
 against the conclusions of necessity, which are certain. Next in 
 order to be regarded is the execution of the ode, which need not 
 have followed the licentiousness of the plan; and it would have 
 been more becoming in our poet to adhere to authority in the 
 former, than it was censurable to depart from it in the latter -, for 
 to deviate from authority in the former was to produce new fabrics 
 of verse, and thus to indulge in a violence of innovation at which 
 sound judgment must necessarily revolt. It was to be expected 
 therefore that Milton would fortify each of his lines with example, 
 or, in defect of example, would at least advance for his deed the 
 plea of reason, and would attempt to conciliate criticism with the 
 effect of harmony: but to neither of these dictates of prudence 
 has he invariably attended. For some of his verses individual 
 example will be sought for in vain, while in others, not strictly 
 conformable to those models which they most nearly resemble, 
 the less severe and fastidious will admit the principle of con- 
 struction not to be wholly contrary to the genius of the Latin 
 language, and will acknowledge that the rhythm distinguishes 
 them from the asperity of their neighbours. With lines of this 
 description may be classed the following : 
 
LIPE OF MILTON. 283 
 
 (1646,) the wife of Milton produced her first 
 
 Quaestorque gazac nobilioris. 
 Optat peculi, numeroque justo. 
 Sibi pollicitum queritur abesse. 
 JEternorum operum custos fidelis. 
 Et tutela dabit solers Rousi. 
 
 (The two last verses are not Phalaecians, whatever Milton may 
 call them) 
 
 Auctorum Graiae simul ac Latinae, 
 
 Phineamque abigat pestem procul amne Pegaseo. 
 
 Quo neque lingua procax vulgi penetrabit atque longe". 
 
 The five last lines are too cumbrous with spondees, but they 
 are constructed after the manner of Pindar, the most beautiful 
 and the most frequent of whose verses are formed by prefixing 
 or postfixing trochaics to dactylics e. g. 
 
 ro rsov 
 
 Koaoav o"x7cy Qavovluv. 
 So Seneca 
 
 Ut quondam Herculea cecidit pharetra. 
 Motam barbaricis equitum catervis. 
 
 These lines, though not very strictly formed on any model and 
 indefensible by example, may be admitted as not deficient in 
 rhythm : but others are to be found in this composition of Mil- 
 ton's not only unprotected by the strong bulwark of authority, 
 but unrecommended also by the wily influence of harmony; 
 monsters, such as Seneca, or whoever was the author of GEdipus 
 and Agamemnon, scarcely ever begot, or Georgius Fabricius 
 christened. To reject disdainfully such specimens as are con- 
 tained in the following list requires not the superbum aurium 
 udicium. King Midas would have disapproved of them; and we 
 may decide dogmatically, and may animadvert severely, without 
 caution and without delicacy, on a fact which is so obvious and 
 on uncouthness which is so barbarous. 
 
284 LIFE OF MILTON. 
 
 child,' a daughter, baptized by the name of 
 
 Insons populi, barbitoque devius. 
 Modo quis Deus, aut editus Deo. 
 Pristinam gentis miseratus indolem. 
 Orbi notus per immensos. 
 Almaque revocet studia sanctus. 
 Fugere Lethen, vehique superam. 
 Sedula tamen baud nimii poetae. 
 Callo tereris institoris insulsi. 
 Quis te, parve liber, quis te fratribus. 
 Munditieque nitens non operosa. 
 Quicquid hoc sterile fudit ingenium. 
 Jam serb placidam sperare jubeo. 
 Dum vagus Ausonias nunc per umbras. 
 
 As Antispastics, (a measure though difficult and obscure, yet 
 not lawless and licentious,) are in use only among the Greeks, 
 and were rejected by the Latins, as unpleasant to their ears and 
 repugnant to their accent, it would be in vain to justify the 
 preceding lines by referring them to that metre, to which they 
 may perhaps bear some shadowy resemblance: with any degree 
 of resemblance, they could not be permitted to avail themselves 
 of such far-fetched and foreign authority citra mare nati. 
 
 Of the remaining lines of this ode, it will be sufficient to say 
 that they are good and that most of them are well-known and 
 well authorized, without entering into a tedious detail of the 
 names of dactylics, iambics, trochaics, asclepiadeans, &c. &c. 
 The dactylic, Clarus Erectheides, would sound fuller and better 
 if the dipththong ei were resolved puncto dialyseos. Dawes has 
 well observed that these words Tvfafy;, Argsifys, c. never occur 
 in Homer where they must be trisyllables, but only where they 
 way be quadrisyllables. Add to this the words of Eustathius not 
 far from the beginning of his Tlap sx*oAai sis 
 Ot AioXFtf tfoAAa'xi; gV r&is h 
 
 5 July 2Q. 
 
LIFE OF MILTON. 285 
 
 Anne, who was lame either from her birth, 
 or in consequence of some accident in her 
 early infancy. In the following year, in 
 which our author's father died, his allies, the 
 Powells, returned to their own mansion, and 
 his house, being once more resigned to lite- 
 rature, " looked again/' to use his nephew's 
 expression, " like a house of the * Muses." 
 In this house however, .in which his second 
 child, Mary, was born," he did not continue 
 long; x exchanging it for one of smaller di- 
 mensions in High Holborn, the back part 
 of which opened into Lincoln's Inn Fields. 
 
 ws tv fw sif, 
 Pindar sometimes uses the dialysis, and sometimes not. 
 
 votrrov. 
 
 In the scolion to Harmodius and Aristogeiton. 
 Tvfe'ifyy TS ecr^Aov AiouijSga 
 Si quid meremur sana posteritas sciet. 
 
 I cannot help admiring that Seneca should so studiously affect 
 an anapaest in the fifth place of a senarius, to the almost entire 
 exclusion of a tribrach and an iambus. 
 
 1 Philips, xxvii. u October 25, 1648. 
 
 x The date of this change of residence is not precisely ascer- 
 tained. It is said to have been soon after the march of the 
 army, in April 1647, under Fairfax and Cromwell to suppress 
 the insurrection, excited in the city by Massey and Brown. 
 Milton's official appointment took place in 1649, soon after the 
 establishment of the Council of State. He occupied his house, 
 therefore, in High Holborn about two years. 
 
86 LITE OF MILTON. 
 
 His next removal of residence was occa- 
 sioned by his acceptance of the office of 
 Latin secretary, which rendered a situation 
 nearer to Whitehall an object of convenience 
 to him. 
 
 As those writings of Milton, which will 
 soon occur to our notice, are intimately con- 
 nected with the great political transactions 
 of his time, it will be necessary to throw a 
 cursory view upon these interesting events, 
 before we proceed again in the prosecution 
 of our more immediate subject. 
 
 The victory at Naseby, gained on the 
 14th of June 1645 by the army under Fair- 
 fax and Cromwell, may be considered as 
 having terminated the war between the Par- 
 liament and Charles, a civil war honourably 
 distinguished from every other by the ge- 
 neral benignity of its spirit, and the admir- 
 able moderation of the victor. From the mo- 
 ment of this defeat the unhappy Monarch 
 was, in truth, in the possession of his enemies; 
 and he passed the few months, which inter- 
 vened before his surrender to the Scots, in a 
 species of captivity at Oxford. 
 
 In the April of the following year,he fled to 
 the army of the Scots before Newark, under 
 the command of the earl of Leven, by whom 
 he was detained as a prisoner, and, in no 
 
LIFE OF MILTON. 28? 
 
 long time, delivered to the commissioners of 
 the Parliament. By them he was y conducted 
 to Hohnby, or Holdenby-house, in North- 
 amptonshire; where he remained, in easy if 
 not in honourable confinement, till he was 
 seized in the following June, by the army; 
 and after some removals was settled by them, 
 in a state of delusive liberty and splendour, 
 at Hampton-Court. 
 
 At this crisis of his fate he was presented 
 with an opportunity of recovering his fallen 
 fortunes, and replacing himself on the throne. 
 The Presbyterians, now in the fulness of their 
 power, with the Parliament, the city of Lon- 
 don and the Scots at their command, thought 
 it no longer necessary to continue that dis- 
 guise which had hitherto imperfectly con- 
 cealed their principles from the world. They 
 openly avowed themselves the enemies of 
 toleration; and their victorious army, com- 
 posed of Independents and various secta- 
 rists, began to discover that they had la- 
 vished their blood only to substitute one ty- 
 ranny for another, and had conquered merety 
 for their own ruin. In this exigence they 
 preferred petitions and remonstrances to the 
 Parliament, and, on the failure of these le- 
 gal weapons, under the impulse of resent- 
 
 y Feb. 0, 1646-7. 
 
288 LIFE OF MILTON. 
 
 ment and despair, they resorted to violence, 
 and destroyed the presbyterian power, the 
 government, and themselves. They became 
 indeed the instruments of their superior of- 
 ficers; and were eventually made the engine 
 of Cromwell, by whom they with the nation 
 were despoiled of all their great political ob- 
 jects; but were gratified with their favourite 
 toleration in its most unlimited extent. 
 
 These events however, though just at 
 hand, were not as yet disclosed or even 
 foreseen; and Ireton and Cromwell, uncer- 
 tain of the result of their contest with the 
 Presbyterians, made an offer to Charles, while 
 he was in their power at Hampton-Court, to 
 reinstate him in his royalties on certain con- 
 ditions, for which they stipulated in behalf of 
 themselves and of their friends. But the in- 
 fatuated prince, under the influence of weak 
 or interested advisers, and elated by a strange 
 opinion of his own essential importance z amid 
 this violent conflict of parties, rejected the 
 proffers of his fortune ; and even offended 
 those, by whom they were made, with his 
 
 z He was persuaded, he said, that it was in his power to turn 
 the scale, and that the party must sink which he abandoned j 
 and he told those, who brought to him the offers of the army, 
 " I shall see you glad ere long to accept more equal terms. You 
 cannot be without me: you will fall to ruin, if I do not sustain 
 you," &c. &c. RUSH WORTH. 
 
LIFE OF MILTON. 289 
 
 haughtiness, his fluctuation and his duplicity. 
 When they found, by their discovery of his 
 secret correspondence with the queen, that no 
 reliance was to be placed on his good faith, 
 Ireton and Cromwell seem to have deter- 
 mined on his destruction; and, withdrawing 
 their protection, they compelled him, for his 
 immediate preservation, to fly from Hamp- 
 ton-Court in quest of another asylum. This 
 he sought, but, instead of it, he unfortu- 
 nately found a much more certain and rigor- 
 ous prison in the Isle of Wight; where he 
 experienced a close confinement for nearly 
 a twelvemonth in Carisbrooke Castle. a 
 
 Even here however fortune seemed again 
 disposed to redress her former wrongs to 
 him, and to give him back, by treaty, a 
 large part at least of what she had ravished 
 from him by arms. But his fatal obstinacy 
 finally repulsed her; and the persuasion, from 
 which all his past experience could not re- 
 claim him, of the consequence of a dethroned 
 and captive king, induced him to throw away 
 the last mean of safety. The difficulties 
 which he interposed protracting the nego- 
 ciation between him and the Parliament, the 
 army gained time to return from their victo- 
 
 Commanded by Col. Hammond, 
 
 U 
 
2QO LIFE OF MILTON. 
 
 rious expedition against the Scots, and to 
 concert their measures against their com- 
 mon enemies, the Presbj'terians and himself. 
 Having possessed themselves of the Parlia- 
 ment by force, they once more seize upon 
 the Monarch, and, insulting him with the 
 mockery of a legal trial under the pretended 
 authority of an unrepresented people, they 
 lead him to suffer on the scaffold. b In pro- 
 nouncing the illegality of this whole proceed- 
 ing the voice of the dispassionate and the in- 
 telligent must necessarily be unanimous; and 
 the question will not be found to include any 
 part of that respecting the guilt of Charles, 
 or the right of the nation to make him re- 
 sponsible with his life, for the abuse of his 
 delegated sceptre. He fell/ as it must be 
 obvious, not by the judicial, but by the mi- 
 litary sword; and, though Bradshaw pro- 
 nounced the sentence, the fanatic army, under 
 the guidance of Ireton and Cromwell, were 
 in truth the authors of his death. 
 
 Abhorrent, as I necessarily must be, from 
 this deed of sanguinary violence, I cannot 
 consent to involve, in one sweep of condem- 
 nation, all those who were its perpetrators. 
 While the greater number of them were wild 
 
 b On the 30th of January, 1648-9. 
 
LIFE OF MILTON. 291 
 
 enthusiasts, who conceived that they were 
 acting in obedience to the will of God by 
 removing the intolerant supporter of prelacy, 
 and the violator also, as they imagined, of 
 the obligation of the sovereign to the people, 
 a few of them, if not comprehensive politi- 
 cians, were honest patriots, who fancied that, 
 by the trial and the execution of a guilty king, 
 they could establish a commonwealth on the 
 basis of equal right and of general advan- 
 tage. Among these, w r ho certainly formed a 
 small minority, I must reckon Ireton, Brad- 
 shaw and Ludlow, men who were true to 
 their professed principles, and who evidently 
 acted on their views of the public good, er- 
 roneous as we know them to have been. 
 On Bradshaw I shall produce in its proper 
 place an eloquent and, in many respects, a 
 just eulogy from the pen of Milton. 
 
 During the whole of this distressful and 
 opprobrious transaction, our author had re- 
 mained an inactive spectator of the public 
 scene, and had in no way been accessory 
 to the fate of Charles. " c Neither did I 
 
 c Neque de jure regio quicqnam a me scriptum est, donee 
 Rex, hostis a senatu judicatus belloque victus, causam captivus 
 apud judices diceret, capitisque damnatus est. Turn vero tan- 
 dem, cum Presbyteriani quidam ministri, Carolo prius infes- 
 tissimi, nunc Independentium partes suis anteferri, et in senatu 
 plus posse indignantes, Parliament! sententiae de Rege latse (non 
 
292 LIF Or MILTON 
 
 write any tiling/' as he declares at a period 
 when the prosperity of his party made it 
 unnecessary for him to suppress the truth, 
 " respecting the regal jurisdiction, till the 
 King, proclaimed an enemy by the senate 
 and overcome in arms, was brought captive 
 to his trial and condemned to suffer death. 
 When indeed some of the presbyterian lead- 
 ers, lately the most inveterately hostile to 
 Charles, but now irritated by the preva- 
 lence of the Independents in the nation and 
 the senate and stung with- resentment not 
 of the fact, but of their own want of power 
 to commit it, exclaimed against the sen- 
 tence of the Parliament upon the King, 
 and raised what commotions they could by 
 daring to assert that the doctrine of the 
 protestant divines and of all the reformed 
 churches was strong in reprobation of this 
 
 facto irati, sed quod ipsorum factio non fecisset) reclamitarent, 
 et, quantum in ipsis erat, tumultuarentur, ausi affirmare Protes- 
 tantium doctrinam, omnesque ecclesias reformatas ab ejusmodi in 
 reges atroci sententia abhorrere, tatus falsitati tarn apertas palam 
 eundum obviam esse, ne turn quidem de Carolo quicquam scripsi 
 aut suasi, sed quid in genere contra tyrannos liceret, adductis 
 baud paucis summorum theologorum testimoniis, ostendi; et 
 insignem hominum, meliora profitentium, sive ignorantiam sive 
 impudentiam, prope concionabundus incessi. Liber iste non nisi 
 post mortem Regis prodiit, ad componendos potius hominum 
 animos factus, quam ad statuenduum de Carolo quicquam, quod 
 non mei sed magistratunm intererat, et peractum jam turn erat. 
 Def. secun. P. W. v. 234. 
 
LIFE OF MILTON. 293 
 
 severity to kings, then at length I con- 
 ceived it to be my duty publicly to oppose 
 so much obvious and palpable falsehood. 
 Neither did I then direct my argument or 
 persuasion personally against Charles, but 
 by the testimony of many of the most emi- 
 nent divines I proved what course of con- 
 duct might lawfully be observed towards 
 tyrants in general; and, with the zeal almost 
 of a preacher, 1 attacked the strange igno- 
 rance or the wonderful impudence of these 
 men who had lately amused us with the 
 promises of better things. This work was 
 not published till after the death of the King; 
 and was written rather to tranquillize the 
 minds of men than to discuss any part of 
 the question respecting Charles, a question, 
 the decision of which belonged to the magis- 
 trate and not to me, and which had now re- 
 ceived its final determination/' 
 
 The work, of which Milton speaks in this 
 passage, was published in February 1648-9 
 with the title of " The Tenure of Kings and 
 Magistrates ; proving that it is lawful, and hath 
 been held so through all ages, for any, who 
 have the power, to call to account a tyrant or 
 wicked king; and, after due conviction, to 
 depose and put him to death, if the ordinary 
 magistrate have neglected or denied to do it/' 
 
294 LIFE OF MILTON. 
 
 Respecting the origin and object of 
 regal and magisterial function there cannot 
 be a dissentient opinion among the enlight- 
 ened and the reflecting. It would be idle to 
 affirm that this monarch inherited his scep- 
 tre from his ancestors, or that another ob- 
 tained his by conquest, or that in no in- 
 stance now before our eyes has the voice of 
 the people seated its favourite on the throne. 
 No other conceivable source of political 
 power can be pretended than the general will 
 operating, by exertion or in acquiescence, 
 for the general order and advantage. 
 
 When God made man weak and indi- 
 gent, and gave him propensities to coalesce 
 for the purpose of supplying his individual 
 impotence by the force of combination, 
 God was in fact the institutor of human so- 
 ciety; and when he permitted man, whom he 
 had created fallible, to lapse into error and 
 thus rendered the con troll of private interest 
 and passion requisite for the common secu- 
 rity, the same Almighty Being was in truth 
 the founder of human government. Poli- 
 tical institution therefore, as well as social 
 union, must be referred to the Creator as to 
 its first father; and the pure despotism of 
 Persia or of imperial Rome may as unques- 
 tionably assert its claim to this heavenly pedi- 
 
LIFE OF MILTOX. 2Q5 
 
 gree as the pure democracy of Athens or 
 the complex artifice of the constitution of 
 Britain. " c The powers that be are ordained 
 of God;" and the magistrate may justly be 
 regarded as the minister of that Supreme 
 Power to whose permission the necessity of 
 his existence must ultimately be referred. 
 Bui while God must thus be admitted as the 
 first parent of government in the abstract, 
 he has evidently submitted the adjustment 
 of its particular modes to the reason and the 
 will of man. By this intellectual and moral 
 agent the requisite controll may be enlarged 
 or restrained, may be confined to the hands 
 of one, or distributed among those of many 
 according to the determination of his wants, 
 his habits, or his inclination ; and, on the 
 principle that human guilt is punishable by 
 human justice, the abuser of this confided 
 controll must be amenable to the judgment 
 of those from whose authority and for whose 
 benefit he has received it. 
 
 To this point, then, we cannot well re- 
 fuse our concurrence to Milton; but to the 
 next step it will be hazardous to accom- 
 pany him. If the right to punish these ele- 
 vated delinquents be invariably annexed to 
 
 c Rom. xiii. 1. 
 
296 LIFE 01' MILTON. 
 
 the possession of the power, a fearful open- 
 ing will be left for mischief; and the sword, 
 directed by private passion or perhaps by 
 individual caprice, may injure the interests 
 of thousands while it strikes a criminal ma- 
 gistrate. There may indeed be extreme 
 cases in which nature, rising against op- 
 pression, will vindicate the blow inflicted by 
 one or by the few. But the occurrence of 
 these cases must necessarily be so rare, and 
 the evil of the proposed remedy is so incon- 
 troverlibly great, that a Christian moralist 
 cannot hesitate to prohibit the execution of 
 the most evident public justice by any less 
 power than that of the public will. The 
 wisdom of the English constitution is in this 
 instance especially admirable. Making, un- 
 der the influence of the most cogent reasons, 
 the person of the first magistrate intangible 
 and sacred and yet acknowledging the in- 
 dissoluble union of responsibility with trust, 
 it compels this inviolable officer to act with 
 the agency of others, and to these indispen- 
 sible instruments it attaches the responsibi- 
 lity of the great executive office. 
 
 With the conscious security of a patri- 
 archal father at the head of his extended 
 family, the Sovereign is thus invited to the 
 indulgence of paternal benevolence, while 
 
LIFE OF MILTON. 297 
 
 the interests of the community are as effec- 
 tually secured as if the sword, in perpetual 
 and delicate suspense over his head, were 
 ready to fall on him for every abuse of his 
 delegated authority. But some of the finer 
 lineaments of the English constitution were 
 not ascertained in the time of Milton; and 
 his ideas of liberty were formed principally 
 in the school of Greece, where the hand 
 which slew a tyrant was consecrated ; and 
 where, from the natural result of their trem- 
 bling insecurity, these usurpers of the public 
 rights were peculiarly bloody and ferocious. 
 The treatise, which we are noticing, is 
 full of strong argument and weighty sense. 
 In support of the lawfulness of tyrannicide, 
 the writer adduces some examples from the 
 Hebrew scriptures; and is willing to infer 
 that the especial commission of unerring 
 wisdom and justice, which certainly hallows 
 the deed immediately in question, commu- 
 nicates the covering of its sanction to deeds 
 precisely the same in kind, motive, and ef- 
 fect. From the sacred writings of the chris- 
 tians he can cite only two or three passages, 
 which prove nothing more than that the 
 blessed Jesus did not assign to monarchs 
 all the attributes which were given to them 
 by the adulation of the world, or feel for 
 
LIFE OF MILTON. 
 
 wicked sovereigns more respect than he felt 
 for wicked men. 
 
 The opinions of Christian divines/ which 
 are subsequently produced, make more di- 
 rectly and fully for the author's purpose. 
 According to the judgment of these learned 
 and pious men, " kings are under the laws 
 as well as their subjects, and regal guilt, 
 from its greater consequences, ought to be 
 corrected with severer infliction :'' " kings 
 have their authority from the people, who 
 may upon occasion reassume it:" " kings 
 who endeavour to subvert religion, and use 
 their power to the injury of those for whose 
 benefit it was entrusted to them, break the 
 ties between them and their people, and re- 
 lease the latter from their allegiance;" and, 
 lastly, " kings or rulers, who become blas- 
 phemers of God, oppressors and murderers 
 of their subjects, ought not to be accounted 
 kings or lawful magistrates, but ought, as 
 private men, to be examined, accused, con- 
 demned and punished." 
 
 These authorities unquestionably demon- 
 strate that the responsibility of kings to a 
 human tribunal is a doctrine which has not 
 
 d The divines, whose opinions are cited by Milton on this 
 occasion, are Luther, Zwinglius, Calvin, Bucer, Peter Martyr, 
 Paraeus, Gilby, Christopher Goodman, and the Scotch reformers, 
 with the whole body of the Scotch clergy. 
 
LIFE OF MILTON. 299 
 
 uniformly been considered as incompatible 
 with Christian theology : but their support 
 cannot be extended to the full assertion in 
 the title of this piece, " that it is lawful for any 
 who have the power to call to account a tyrant;" 
 c. though this assertion be a little qualified 
 by the subsequent words, " and after due con- 
 viction to depose and put him to death." 
 
 In the course of this work the Presbyte- 
 rians obtain much of the author's notice ; 
 and their conduct is exposed by him with 
 the severity which it deserved. It was dif- 
 ficult indeed to animadvert too strongly 
 upon the inconsistency of men who, after 
 resisting the authority of their sovereign, 
 after making him the aim of their devout 
 execrations from the pulpit and of their ar- 
 tillery in the field, after " hunting and pur- 
 suing him," to use the author's own words, 
 " round about the kingdom with fire and 
 sword;" after dethroning, seizing, and im- 
 prisoning him, now clamoured against the 
 natural result of their own actions, and, pre- 
 tending conscience and the covenant, felt 
 extreme tenderness for the inviolability and 
 sacredness of the kingly person, which they 
 had endangered by their war and had vio- 
 lated with their chains. It would have 
 been well for them if they had attended to 
 
300 LIFE OF MILTON. 
 
 the salutary warning given to them by our 
 author, and, withholding their confidence 
 from men exasperated beyond the just hope 
 of a reconciliation, had forborne to coalesce 
 with the royalists, by whom they were soon 
 to be crushed in one common ruin with their 
 immediate enemies the Independents. 
 
 The next work, which came in rapid suc- 
 cession from the pen of Milton, was, " Ob- 
 servations upon the Articles of Peace, which 
 the earl of Ormond had concluded at Kil- 
 kenny, on the 17th of Jan. 1648-9? in the 
 king's name and by his authority, with the 
 popish Irish Rebels, &c. &c." 
 
 From its imputed connexion with the re- 
 bellion of the catholics in Ireland, the royal 
 cause had contracted remarkable unpopu- 
 larity. This insurrection, which evinced the 
 power of long-continued oppression to de- 
 base and unhumanize man, was so deeply 
 stained with blood, and was distinguished 
 by features of such peculiar ferocity as to 
 strike not England alone, but all civilized 
 and Christian Europe with horror and con- 
 sternation. An insurrection which, in its first 
 fury, had massacred, (as has been computed, 
 though probably with considerable exaggera- 
 tion,) nearly 200,000 persons, defenceless and 
 unsuspicious of danger; an insurrection, in 
 
LIFE OP MILTON". 301 
 
 which neither the tenderness of sex, nor the 
 weakness of commencing or of declining life 
 had prevailed on pity to suspend the stroke 
 of murder; an insurrection, in which the 
 mother and the infant at her breast had fre- 
 quently been confounded in each others 
 blood, and even the living womb had been 
 ripped up to intercept the hope of breathing 
 existence; an insurrection, in short, which 
 had acknowledged no social tie, which had 
 exhausted torture and insult to inflame the 
 agonies of death, which in some instances 
 had attempted to gratify its fiend-like re- 
 venge, by destroying with one wound both 
 the body and the soul could not certainly 
 be contemplated without horror, or be em- 
 braced without the deepest contamination. 
 
 With the massacre itself no participation 
 of the King's could be pretended by the har- 
 diest malice of his enemies: but it would per- 
 haps exceed the power of his most bigoted 
 friends to clear him from the charge of be- 
 ing accessory to the revolt, of which the 
 massacre was the terrible, but not necessary 
 or foreseen consequence. The feeling of a 
 common cause against the increasing power 
 of the Parliament, and the persuasion of 
 a common religion had undoubtedly pre- 
 vailed upon the Queen to lend her sanction, 
 
302 LIFE OF MILTON. 
 
 in which the King's Avas implied, to the 
 projected rising of the papists, whose army 
 Called itself her's, and whose leaders every 
 where professed to act under the royal au- 
 thority, and loyally avowed their support of 
 the throne. We can easily admit that the 
 king's commission, pretended by O'Neale, 
 was a forgery of that detestable ruffian's: but 
 the papers, produced after the restoration by 
 his associate, the marquis of Antrim, among 
 which was a letter in the King's own hand 
 authorizing him to take up arms, cannot fail 
 to convince the most resolute infidelity that 
 the court, not aware of the weakness and 
 the mischief of such assistance, had solicited 
 aid from the co-operation of the Irish chiefs. 
 The subsequent excesses of these barbarian 
 bigots made the strongest disavowal of any 
 connexion with them, on the part of their 
 royal ally, a measure of the most obvious ex- 
 pediency: but the conduct of Charles, when, 
 within the space of three years and at a crisis 
 not unfavourable to his fortunes, he gave to 
 the earl of Glamorgan full powers to treat 
 with these murderers, and to grant not merely 
 pardon, but honours and triumph to their 
 crimes, abundantly demonstrates that loy- 
 alty with " hands thicker than themselves 
 with brother's blood," was more acceptable 
 
LIFE OF MILTON. 303 
 
 to him than resistance with the most specious 
 and alluring smile of patriotism on its cheek. 
 
 The peace concluded in his name with 
 these insurgents by the earl of Ormond, on 
 the articles of which Milton now animad- 
 verts, was susceptible of more palliation, as 
 it was made under circumstances of greater 
 pressure and when the royal cause was re- 
 duced to the most desperate extremity. In 
 either case however he must be a stern mo- 
 ralist, and ignorant of the just demand of 
 human weakness, who will not pause before 
 he condemns a monarch, in the same situa- 
 tion with Charles, for refusing to offer his 
 private interests at the shrine of public virtue, 
 and to reject the promises of personal good 
 from a regard to the welfare or from sym- 
 pathy with the feeling of an alienated and 
 hostile nation. But let this point be deter- 
 mined as it may, one of the principal causes 
 of the King's ruin was his supposed confe- 
 deration with the Irish catholics ; and the 
 treaty made with them under his authority 
 by Ormond, at the time of which we are 
 speaking, was sufficient to confirm the pub- 
 lic prepossession on the subject and to give 
 the tone of truth to republican and puritan 
 invective. 
 
 The opportunity was too favourable to 
 
304 LIFE OF MILTON. 
 
 be neglected by Milton; and he found it 
 not difficult to be severe on the articles of 
 a peace which, completely abandoning the 
 English and the protestant causes in Ireland, 
 permitted their enemies to exult in the suc- 
 cessful consequences of their sanguinary re- 
 venge. The conduct indeed of the Royalists 
 in this instance, and of their new allies, the 
 Presbyterians, one of whose official papers, 
 called " A Representation of the Presbytery 
 at Belfast/' was included in Milton's pre- 
 sent strictures, very evidently discovered to 
 what lengths in dereliction of principle, and 
 how far from any sight of the public-good 
 men could be hurried by the irritation of pri- 
 vate motives and the domineering influence 
 of party rage. 
 
 When he had concluded this attack on 
 the united enemies, as he was inclined to 
 deem them, of his country, Milton reverted 
 to the more quiet occupations of literature, 
 and "finished, as he tells us, four books of 
 
 e His rebus confectis, cum jam abunde otii existimarem mihi 
 futurum, ad historiam gentis, ab ultima origine repetitam ad hsec 
 usque tempora, si possem, perpetuo filo deducendam me converli. 
 Qnatuor sane libros absolveram, cum ecce nihil tale cogitantem 
 me,, Caroli regno in rempublicam redacto, Concilium Status, 
 quod dicitur, turn primum authoritate parliament! constitutum, 
 
LIFE OF MILTON. 305 
 
 that great historical work, which he intended 
 to consecrate to the honour of his native 
 land. 
 
 Of this work, in which it was the writer's 
 purpose to trace the entire history of Eng- 
 land from its first dark source in the regions 
 of fable to its influx into his own times, 
 only six books were completed.. The four 
 first of these conduct the narrative to the 
 union of the Heptarchy under Egbert; and 
 the two last, written in his next pause from 
 controversial asperity when he had crushed 
 the interfering insolence of Morus, bring 
 it no lower than to the battle of Hastings. 
 Of a history, so imperfect and terminating 
 just at the moment in which it was to be- 
 come interesting, we can only say that the 
 materials, which are copiously and curiously 
 collected, are well arranged and combined; 
 and that the style, made occasionally harsh 
 by inversions not congenial with our lan- 
 guage, is uniformly perspicuous and ener- 
 getic while it is frequently elegant and har- 
 monious. The first book of this work is 
 abandoned without reserve to the fables of 
 Geoffrey of Monmouth, and was intended, 
 
 ad se vocat, meaq; opera ad res prresertim externas uti voluit. 
 P.W. v. 234. 
 
 X 
 
306 
 
 LIFE OF MILTON. 
 
 as the author intimates, rather to suggest sub- 
 jects to the poet than maxims to the states- 
 man or lessons to the sage/ 
 
 The prosecution of this historical labour 
 was suspended by an event which formed a 
 great crisis in Milton's life ; and, immedi- 
 ately leading him to extended fame and for- 
 tune, eventually proved the mean of his ex- 
 treme danger and distress. 
 
 On the death of Charles, a government 
 nominally representative, and professing to 
 spring directly from the will of the people, 
 was raised upon the ruins of the throne. In 
 this state of things, the executive power was 
 lodged, by that portion of the long Parlia- 
 ment which had survived the violence of 
 the fanatic army, in a council consisting of 
 thirty-eight members of the legislative as- 
 sembly, and by them the political machine 
 was conducted under the name of the Com- 
 monwealth of England. A republic, how- 
 ever constituted, and how liable soever to 
 objection in its best forms and under the 
 wisest modifications, is still informed with a 
 strong principle of animation, which actu- 
 
 f I have, therefore, determined to bestow the telling over 
 even of these reputed tales j be it for nothing else but in fa- 
 vour of our English poets and rhetoricians, who by their art 
 will know how to use them judiciously. P. W. iv. 2. 
 
UFE OF MILTON. 30? 
 
 ates public spirit and summons into exer- 
 tion all the talent and energy of a people. 
 The Council of State, as the executive coun- 
 cil was called, in which were men of large 
 and comprehensive minds, approved itself 
 to be eminently qualified for the task of 
 empire; and the new Commonwealth pro- 
 ceeded, under its direction, to command the 
 respect and the terror of Europe. 
 
 England at this juncture, like the g snake, 
 described by the poet, on its issuing from its 
 winter retreat, erected herself in the reno- 
 vated brilliancy of youth, and presented an 
 aspect which every where prevented by in- 
 timating a defiance of assault. Resolved 
 on adopting the old Roman language for 
 that of the government in its intercourse 
 with foreign nations, one of the first acts of 
 
 s Q.ualis ubi in lucem coluber, mala gramina pastus, 
 Frigida sub terra tumidum quern bruma tegebatj 
 Nunc positis noyus exuviis, nitidusque juventa 
 Lubrica convolvit, sublato pectore, terga, 
 Arduus ad solem, et linguis micat ore Irisulcis. 
 
 . ii. v. 4K 
 
 As when a serpent from his winter bed, 
 
 Repair'd by sleep, with earth's green poisons fed, 
 
 Springs into light; and, having thrown aside 
 
 His wrinkled age, exults in youthful pride : 
 
 Shoots through the grass his radiant length unroll'dj 
 
 Or, rear'd against the sun on many a fold, 
 
 Threats with his triple tongue, and eyes of living gold, 
 
308 LITE OF MILTON. 
 
 the new council was the appointment of a 
 Latin secretary for the execution of its wise 
 and spirited design. The learning, talents, 
 and republicanism of Milton immediately 
 pointed him out to the sagacity of the 
 Council as the person fitted for its purpose; 
 and accordingly, without even a suspicion 
 of the preferment which was intended for 
 him, he was invited into the service of the 
 state. 
 
 It has been asked, but as I think un- 
 necessarily since his literary and political 
 merits had long been known to the public, 
 by whose interest he was selected for this 
 honourable preference; and it has been sug- 
 gested that he might be indebted for it either 
 to the younger Vane or to Bradshaw, who 
 were members of the Council, and who have 
 been made the subjects, in verse and in prose, 
 of his poetic and his eloquent panegyric. We 
 have already noticed, and we shall now trans- 
 scribe the sonnet which he addressed to the 
 former of these eminent characters; and we 
 shall then produce, from his " Second De- 
 fence/' the portrait which he has so admirably 
 delineated of the latter. In Vane was exhi- 
 bited the most extraordinary union of power 
 with imbecillity, of comprehension with nar- 
 rowness, of the cool and penetrating states- 
 
LIFE 0V MILTON. 309 
 
 man with the heated and visionary enthu- 
 siast. Of Braclshaw, branded and black- 
 ened as he has been hy the violence of party, 
 it may almost be imprudent to hazard a fa- 
 vourable opinion. After an interval how- 
 ever of a century and a half, the truth may 
 surely be spoken even of the judge whose 
 office it was to pass sentence upon Charles 
 Stuart; and another age, at some distance 
 from those peculiar circumstances which 
 have unhappily tainted the present with 
 passion and prejudice, will do ample jus- 
 tice, as I doubt not, to a man who was mis- 
 taken indeed and placed in an unfortunate 
 situation, but whose radical and vital prin- 
 ciple was public virtue; who would have 
 been honoured in the purest times of Gre- 
 cian and Roman patriotism, and whose high- 
 souled and consistent independence refused 
 on more than one occasion to submit to the 
 will of an imperious and irresistible usurper. 11 
 
 h ' In the afternoon the General went to the Council of State, 
 attended by Major General Lambert and Harrison, and as he 
 entered the room said, " Gentlemen, if you are met here as pri- 
 vate persons, you shall not be disturbed 5 but if as a Council of 
 State, this is no place for you; and since you cannot but know 
 what was done in the morning, so take notice the Parliament 
 is dissolved." Serjeant Bradshaw replied, " Sir, we have heard 
 what you did in the morning, but you are mistaken to think 
 the Parliament is dissolved; for no power can dissolve them 
 but themselves, therefore, take you notice of that." But the 
 
310 LITE OF MILTOK. 
 
 TO SIR HENRY VANE THE YOUNGER. 
 
 VANE, young in years but in sage counsel old, 
 Than whom a better senator ne'er held 
 The helm of Rome, when gowns not arms repell'd 
 
 The fierce Epirot and the Afran bold; 
 
 Whether to settle peace or to unfold 
 The drift of hollow states, hard to be spell'd, 
 Then to advise how war may, best upheld, 
 
 Move by her two main nerves, iron and gold, 
 
 General not being terrified with big words, the Council thought 
 it the wisest way to rise up and go home. Neal's History of the 
 Puritans, iv. 03. 
 
 Ludlow, who, with Bradshaw Rich and Vane, was summoned 
 before Cromwell in council, thus speaKs of the conduct of Brad- 
 shaw in opposition to the formidable usurper. " Cromwell, as 
 soon as he saw the Lord President,, required him to take out a 
 new commission for his office of Chief Justice of Chester, which 
 he refused, alleging that he held that place by a grant from the 
 Parliament of England to continue, qnamdiu se bene gesserit; 
 and whether he had carried himself with that integrity which his 
 commission exacted, he was ready to submit to a trial by twelve 
 Englishmen to be chosen even by Cromwell himself." He per- 
 severed, and with his first commission continued on the bench 
 of Chester, 
 
 If Horace had been gifted with prophecy we should have 
 concluded that Bradshaw had been present to his vision when 
 he wrote 
 
 Justum et tenacem propositi virnnv 
 Non vultus instantis tyranni 
 Mente quatit solida, &c. 
 
 But perhaps the second line in this stanza might not be consi- 
 dered as equally applicable, viz. 
 
 Non civiuro ardor prava jubentium. 
 
LIFE OF MILTON. 311 
 
 In all her equipage : besides to know 
 
 Both spiritual power and civil, what each means. 
 What severs each thou'st learn'd, which few have done: 
 
 The bounds of either sword to thee we owe: 
 Therefore on thy firm hand religion leans 
 
 In peace, and reckons thee her eldest son. 
 
 " Est Joannes Bradscianus, (quod no- 
 men libertas ipsa, quacunque gentium coli- 
 tur, memoriae sempiternae celebrandum com- 
 mendavit,) nobili familia, ut salis notum est, 
 ortus; unde patriis legibus addiscendis pri- 
 inain omnem aetatem sedulo impendit: dein 
 consultissimus causarum ac disertissimus pa- 
 tronus, libertatis et populi vindex acerrimus, 
 et magnis reipublicae negotiis est adhibitus, 
 et incorrupt! judicis munere aliquoties per- 
 functus. Tandem uti Regis judicio praesi- 
 dere vellet a Senatu rogatus, provinciam 
 sane periculosissimam non recusavit. Attu- 
 lerat enirn ad legum scientiam ingenium li- 
 berale, animum excelsum, mores integros ac 
 neniini obnoxios ; unde illud munus, omni 
 propfe exemplo majus ac formidabilius, tot 
 sicariorum pugionibus ac minis petitus, ita 
 constanter, ita graviter, tantd auimi cum 
 praesentid ac dignitate gessit atque implevit, 
 ut ad hoc ipsum opus, quod jam olim Deus 
 edendum in hoc populo mirabili providen- 
 tiA decreverat, ab ipso numine designatus 
 atque factus videretur; et tyrannicidaruni 
 
312 LIFE OF MILTON. 
 
 omnium gloriam tantum superaverit, quanti 
 est humanius, quanto juslius ac majestate 
 plenius tyrannum judicare, quam injudica- 
 tum occidere. Alioqui nee tristis nee severus 
 sed comis et placidus, personam tamen quam 
 suscepit tantam, asqualis ubique sibi ac ve- 
 luti consul non unius anni, pari gravitate 
 sustinet: ut non de tribunal! tantum, sed 
 per omnem vitarn judicare regem diceres. 
 In consiliis et laboribus publicis maxiine 
 omnium indefessus multisque par uims: do- 
 mi, si quis alius, pro suis facultatibus hos- 
 pitalis ac splendid us, amicus longe fidelissi- 
 mus atque in omni fortuna certissirnus, bene 
 merentes quoscunque nemo citius aut li- 
 bentius agnoscit neque majore benevolectia 
 prosequitur; nunc pios, nunc doctos, aut 
 quavis ingenii laude eognilos, nunc inilita- 
 res etiam et fortes viros ad inopiam redac- 
 tos suis opibus sublevat; iis si non indigent, 
 colit tamen libens atque amplectitur: alie- 
 nas laudes perpetuo praedicare, suas taccre 
 solitus; hostium quoque civilium siquis ad 
 sanitatem rediit, quod expert! sunt plurimi, 
 nemo ignoscentior. Quod si causa oppress! 
 cujuspiam defendenda palam, si gratia aut 
 vis potentiorum oppugnanda, si in quen- 
 quam bene meritum ingratitudo publica ob- 
 jurganda sit, turn quidem in illo viro vel 
 
LIFE OF MILTON. 313 
 
 facundiam vel constantiam nemo desideret, 
 non patronum, non amicum, vel idoneum 
 magis et intrepidum, vel disertiorem aliurri 
 quisquam sibi optet: habet quern non minae 
 dimovere recto, non metus aut munera pro- 
 posito bono atque officio, vultusque ac men- 
 tis firmissimo statu dejicere valeant." 1 
 
 " John Bradshaw, (a name which, in 
 every country where her power is acknow- 
 ledged, liberty herself has consecrated to 
 immortal renown,) was descended, as is ge- 
 nerally known, of a noble family. The early 
 part of his life he devoted to the study of the 
 laws of his country; and then becoming a 
 profound lawyer, a most eloquent advocate, 
 a zealous assertor of freedom and the peo- 
 ple's rights, he was employed in the more 
 important affairs of the state, and frequently 
 discharged, with unimpeachable integrity, 
 the duties of a judge. When, at length, so- 
 licited by the Parliament to preside at the 
 trial of the King, he did not decline this 
 most dangerous commission : for to the sci- 
 ence of the law he had brought a liberal 
 disposition, a lofty spirit, sincere and unof- 
 fending manners; and, thus qualified, he 
 supported that great and, beyond prece- 
 
 1 P. W. v 24Q. 
 
314 LIFE OF MILTON. 
 
 dent, fearful office, exposed to the threats 
 and to the daggers of innumerable assassins, 
 with so much firmness, so much weight of 
 manner, such presence and dignity of mind 
 that he seemed to have been formed and ap- 
 pointed immediately by the Deity himself 
 for the performance of that deed, which the 
 Divine Providence had of old decreed to be 
 accomplished in this nation; and so far has 
 he exceeded the glory of all tyrannicides as 
 it is more humane, more just, more noble to 
 try and to pass legal sentence on a tyrant, 
 than without trial to put him to death. 
 
 " Though in other respects neither gloomy 
 nor severe but gentle and placid, he yet sus- 
 tains with unfaltering dignity the character 
 which he has borne, and, uniformly consist- 
 ent with himself, he appears like a consul 
 from whom the fasces are not to depart 
 with the year ; so that not on the tribunal 
 only, but throughout his life you would re- 
 gard him as sitting in judgment upon kings. 
 Unwearied, and singly equal to a multi- 
 tude in his labours for the public, in domes- 
 tic life, to the utmost stretch of his power, 
 he is hospitable and splendid: the stedfast- 
 ness and adherency of his friendship are not 
 to be affected by the vicissitudes of fortune: 
 and instant and eager to acknowledge merit 
 
LIFE OF MILTON 315 
 
 wherever it is discovered, he is munificent to 
 reward it. The pious, the learned, the emi- 
 nent in any walk of genius, the soldier and 
 the brave man are either relieved by his 
 wealth, if in distress, or, if not indigent, are 
 cultivated by his attentions and cherished 
 in his embrace. Delighted to dwell on the 
 praises of others, he studiously suppresses his 
 own. So great are his placability and rea- 
 diness to forgive, that they are extended, as 
 very many have experienced, even to the 
 the enemies of himself and of the state when, 
 from a sense of their errors, they have reverted 
 to reason. 
 
 " If the cause of the oppressed is openly 
 to be asserted; if the influence and the strong 
 arm of the powerful are to be controlled; if 
 the public ingratitude to any meritorious in- 
 dividual is to be arraigned, then will no de- 
 ficiency of eloquence or of fortitude be seen 
 in this great man; then will the client possess 
 in him an advocate and a friend suited to 
 all his wants and adequate to his highest 
 expectations: the cause indeed will be in the 
 hands of a defender whom no threats can 
 divert from the straight path; whom neither 
 intimidation nor bribes can bend from the 
 uprightness of duty, or for an instant deject 
 
316 LIFE OF MILTON. 
 
 from the conscious firmness of his counte- 
 nance and the determined attitude of his 
 mind." k 
 
 k Enough has been said of Bradshaw to satisfy the demand of 
 my subject : but for the amusement of my readers I am inclined 
 to insert in this place an inscription on this resolute but mistaken 
 republican, written by an American pen and deeply blotted with 
 ihe intemperance of party. It is transcribed from a copy, dated, 
 Annapolis, June 21, 1//3, and is here given merely as a curiosity, 
 and as a symptom of that fiery spirit which was working in the 
 bosom of our colonies before it acquired its full strength, and, in 
 consequence of the injudicious measures of our government,, burst 
 into pernicious action. The inscription is stated to have been 
 engraven on a cannon 5 whence copies were taken and hung up 
 in almost every house throughout the continent of America. The 
 false points of this short production are too obvious to require any 
 particular indication. The conduct of Bradshaw was the result, 
 as I am persuaded, of high though misdirected principle; and he 
 therefore may be allowed the praise which his American eulogist 
 has lavished on him: but, under all the circumstances of the 
 case, the death of Charles must for ever be condemned as an act 
 in atrocious opposition to the law and the constitution of England, 
 and must consequently be branded, to the last revolution of time, 
 as a MURDER. 
 
 Stranger! 
 ere thou pass, contemplate this cannon ; 
 
 nor regardless be told, 
 that near its base lies deposited the dust of 
 
 JOHN BRADSHAW: 
 
 who nobly superior to selfish regards, 
 
 despising alike the pageantry of courtly splendour, 
 
 the blast of calumny, 
 
 and the terrour of regal vengeance, 
 
 presided in the illustrious band of heroes and patriots, 
 
 who fairly and openly adjudged 
 
LIFE OF MILTON. 31? 
 
 To these men, thus ardently praised by 
 Milton, has been ascribed, as we have already 
 intimated, his present appointment by the 
 Council. But if the preference was in the 
 first instance the suggestion of friendship, it 
 was afterwards proved by the event to be 
 the dictate of wisdom. The hand of the Latin 
 Secretary most ably concurred with the spirit 
 of the executive council; and during his con- 
 tinuance in office, which was prolonged to 
 the Restoration, the state-papers in his depart- 
 ment may be regarded as models in the class 
 of diplomatic composition. They speak in- 
 deed the language of energy and wisdom; 
 and entitled equally to the applause of the 
 scholar and the statesman, they must have 
 
 CHARLES STUART, 
 
 tyrant of England, 
 
 to a public and exemplary death ; 
 
 thereby presenting to the amazed world, 
 
 and transmitting down through applauding ages, 
 
 the most glorious example 
 
 of unshaken virtue, 
 
 love of freedom, 
 and impartial justice, 
 
 ever exhibited on the blood-stained theatre 
 of human action. 
 
 Oh! Reader! 
 
 pass not on till thou hast blessed his memory; 
 and never never forget 
 
 THAT REBELLION TO TYRANTS 
 IS OBEDIENCE TO GOD. 
 
318 LITE Of MILTON. 
 
 impressed foreign states with a high opinion 
 of that government for which they were wi it- 
 ten, and in the service of which so much 
 ability was engaged. It may be observed 
 that the character of their immediate author 
 is too great to be altogether lost in that of 
 the ministerial organ ; and that in many 
 of them Milton may be traced in distinct, 
 though not discordant existence from the 
 power for whom he acts. 'The letters which 
 he wrote in the Protector's name to mediate 
 for the oppressed protestants of Piedmont, 
 whose sufferings had revived the horror of the 
 catholic atrocities in Ireland, might be cited 
 in testimony of \vhat I affirm. These official 
 
 1 See Letters to the Duke of Savoy, to the Prince of Transyl- 
 vania, to the King of Sweden, to the States of Holland, Switzer- 
 land, and Geneva, to the Kings of France and of Denmark. 
 P. W. ii. 503. 509. 
 
 It may be proper to observe that this active and powerful 
 interposition of the Protector's was productive of its intended 
 effect. The catholic tyrant desisted from the slaughter of his 
 innocent subjects, and these miserable people had a breathing- 
 time from their calamities. I call them, as they are called in 
 these official despatches, by the generally known name of Pro- 
 testants: but the dissenters from the papal church who occu- 
 pied the vallies of Piedmont had neither connexion nor a com- 
 mon origin with those who were properly called protestants 
 from one of the first acts of their association in Germany. The 
 Waldenses asserted a much more ancient pedigree ; and assumed 
 to be of the old Roman church before it was corrupted by the 
 papal innovations. 
 
LIFE OF MILTON. 319 
 
 instruments are faithful, no doubt, to the 
 general purposes of him under whose au- 
 thority they were produced: but they exhi- 
 bit also much of the liberal and benevolent 
 spirit of the secretary : their mirror cannot 
 be convicted of falsehood or perversion : but, 
 with unquestionable flattery, it reflects the 
 harsh features of the English usurper so soft- 
 ened into positive beauty as to conciliate our 
 affection equally with our respect. 
 
 But it was not merely in conducting the 
 correspondence of the state with foreign 
 powers, that Milton's ministerial agency was 
 employed. It seems to have been used by 
 the Council in all cases which related to fo- 
 reigners, and to have been nearly of an equal 
 extent with that of the modern Secretary of 
 State for the Foreign Department. On this 
 subject a fact is recorded by Philips which, 
 as it attests the efficiency of the Council and 
 of its Secretary, may properly be inserted in 
 in our page. 
 
 At a period not precisely ascertained by 
 the narrator, but evidently soon after the 
 establishment of the new republic, a person 
 arrived from France with a very sumptuous 
 train, in the assumed character of an agent 
 from the Prince of Conde, then in arms against 
 the French Government as it was conducted 
 
320 LIFE OF MILTON. 
 
 by Cardinal Mazarin. The character how- 
 ever of the pretended agent of Conde incur- 
 ring the suspicion of the English Council, its 
 official instruments were employed with so 
 much activity and effect that, in the short 
 space of four or five days, the person in ques- 
 tion was discovered, by intelligence procured 
 from Paris, to be an emissary of the exiled 
 king's; and on the very next morning, the Se- 
 cretary's kinsman, (Philips himself, as we may 
 conclude,) was sent to him with an order from 
 the Council to depart the kingdom within three 
 days or to expect the punishment of a spy. 
 
 On another occasion also, as the cir- 
 cumstance is related by Philips, were the 
 ability and official diligence of Milton and 
 his masters very conspicuously displayed. 
 When the Dutch, desirous of avoiding a 
 rupture with England, had despatched three 
 ambassadors to the English government 
 with proposals for an accommodation, and, 
 on the return of these delegates without the 
 accomplishment of their purpose, had re- 
 solved on sending a plenipotentiary with 
 lower terms and with a design of gaining 
 time, the Council of State succeeded in pro- 
 curing a copy of this minister's instructions 
 even previously to his embarkation ; and before 
 }ie could make his public entry into London, 
 
LIFE OF MILTON. 321 
 
 an answer to all his propositions was pre- 
 pared and lay ready to he delivered to him 
 at the Secretary's Office." 1 
 
 Scarcely was Milton seated in his new 
 and honourable place, when he was sum- 
 moned by the government to the discharge 
 of a peculiar duty, adapted to his powers, and 
 of no inconsiderable importance. 
 
 Immediately on the death of the king, a 
 book, with his name as its author, had been 
 published under the title of 'Ewuv Ba<nX<xiy (Icon 
 Basilike) or " The Portraiture of his sacred 
 Majesty in his solitudes and sufferings/' The 
 stroke of violence, by which Charles had fallen, 
 had excited very generally throughout Eng- 
 land a sensation of sympathy and a strong 
 sentiment of disapprobation. He appeared 
 to have been the victim of an ambitious and a 
 sanguinary faction; and, while his faults were 
 generously buried in his grave, his virtues were 
 seen in more than their proper size and were 
 admitted to more than their just share of 
 praise. The publication therefore of a work 
 professedly by his own hand, in which he 
 is represented in the constant intercourse of 
 prayer with his Creator, asserting the inte- 
 grity of his motives before the great Searcher 
 of hearts and urging an awful appeal from 
 
 m Philips's Life of Milton, xliii, xliv. 
 Y 
 
322 LIFE OF MILTON. 
 
 the injustice and the cruelty of man to the 
 justice and the clemency of God, was calcu- 
 lated in a supreme degree to agitate every 
 bosom in his favour, and to make every free 
 tongue vibrate in execration of the inhuma- 
 nity of his enemies. 
 
 To counteract the consequences of this 
 popular production, which threatened to be 
 alarmingly great, the Council determined on 
 availing itself of the abilities of its new se- 
 cretary. Convinced of the inefficacy of any 
 of the means of power to suppress a favou- 
 rite publication, or magnanimously overlook- 
 ing them, it resolved to wield the only wea- 
 pons adapted to a war with opinion, to wage 
 book against book, to oppose fact with fact, 
 and argument, wherever it could be found, 
 with argument. It delegated therefore to 
 Milton the task of contending with the Icon 
 Basilike; and submitted the merits of its 
 cause to the arbitrement of the pen. 
 
 The 'EiKovoKXcyflw (Iconoclastes) or Image- 
 breaker, which was the apposite title affixed 
 to this refutation of the imputed work of 
 royal authorship, may be regarded as one of 
 the most perfect and powerful of Milton's con- 
 troversial compositions. Pressing closely on 
 its antagonist and tracing him step by step, 
 it either exposes the fallacy of his reasoning 
 
.LIFE OF MILTON. 323 
 
 or the falsehood of his assertions, or the hol- 
 lowness of his professions, or the convenient 
 speciousness of his devotion. In argument 
 and in style compressed and energetic, per- 
 spicuous and neat, it discovers a quickness 
 which never misses an advantage, and a 
 keenness of remark which carries an irresist- 
 ible edge. It cannot certainly be read by 
 any man, whose reason is not wholly under 
 the dominion of prejudice, without its en- 
 forcing a conviction unfavourable to the 
 royal party; and it justly merited the ho- 
 nourable distinction, assigned to it by royalist 
 vengeance, of burning in the same flames 
 with the " Defence of the People of England." 
 The object of its attack indeed is by no 
 means strong. Separated from the cause of 
 the monarchy and of the church of England, 
 the cause of Charles is much more open to 
 assault than it is susceptible of defence. If 
 he has been lowered beneath his just level 
 by his enemies, he has been proportionably 
 raised above it by his friends, and, with a 
 nice regard to truth, we may probably place 
 him in the central point between Nero, to 
 whom he has been resembled by the former, 
 and either of the Antonines, above whom 
 he has been advanced, not without a de- 
 gree of profane temerity, to the honours 
 
324 LIFE OF MILTON. 
 
 of sainthood and martyrdom by the latter. 
 His private life was not perhaps liable to 
 censure, as it was blemished only with com- 
 mon imperfection ; but his public conduct 
 betrayed the violence of a despot with the 
 duplicity and equivocating morality of a fol- 
 lower of Loyola, 
 
 The opening of the Iconoclastes may be 
 cited as exhibiting dignity of sentiment and 
 excellence of composition. " n To descant 
 on the misfortunes of a person, fallen from 
 so high a dignity, who hath also paid his 
 final debt to nature and his faults, is neither 
 of itself a thing commendable nor the in- 
 tention of this discourse. Neither was it 
 fond ambition, nor the vanity to get a name, 
 present or with posterity, by writing against 
 a king. I never was so thirsty after fame, 
 nor so destitute of other hopes and means^ 
 better and more certain, to attain it: for 
 kings have gained glorious titles from their 
 favourers by writing against private men, as 
 
 n Milton disclaims, on another occasion, any intention of in- 
 sulting the memory of Charles. 
 
 " Non manibus regiis insultans, ut insimulorj sed reginam 
 veritatem regi Carolo anteponendam arbitratus." Def. secun. 
 P. W. v. 235. 
 
 The majesty of truth he deemed to be an object more worthy 
 of regard than that of kings ; and was be to be censured for such 
 an opinion ? 
 
LIFE OF MILTON. 325 
 
 Henry VIII did against Luther; but no man 
 ever gained much honour by writing against 
 a king, as not usually meeting with that 
 force of argument in such courtly antago- 
 nists which to convince might add to his 
 reputation. Kings most commonly, though 
 strong in legions, are but weak at arguments; 
 as they who ever have been accustomed from 
 their cradle to use their will only as their 
 right hand, their reason always as their left. 
 Whence, unexpectedly constrained to that 
 kind of combat, they prove but weak and 
 puny adversaries. Nevertheless, for their 
 sakes who, through custom, simplicity, or 
 want of better teaching, have not more se- 
 riously considered kings than in the gaudy 
 name of majesty, and admire them and their 
 doings as if they breathed not the same 
 breath with other mortal men, I shall make 
 no scruple, (for it seems to be the challenge 
 of him and all his party,) to take up this 
 gauntlet, though a king's, in the behalf of 
 liberty and the commonwealth/' 
 
 It would be endless to extract all the in- 
 stances, which occur in this work, of strong 
 argument, keen satire, and brilliant compo- 
 sition. I will content| myself therefore with 
 
 ;p.w. H. 391. 
 
326" LITE OF MILtOlST. 
 
 transcribing the following short and spirited 
 paragraph. 
 
 " But p what needed that? They knew 
 his chiefest arms left him were those only 
 which the ancient Christians were wont to 
 use against their persecutors, prayers and 
 tears. O sacred reverence of God ! respect 
 and shame of men! whither were ye fled 
 when these hypocrisies were uttered? Was 
 the kingdom, then, at all that cost of blood 
 to, remove from him none but prayers and 
 tears? What were those thousands of blas- 
 pheming cavaliers about him, whose mouths 
 let fly oaths and curses by the volley? were 
 those the prayers? and those carouses drunk 
 to the confusion of all things good or holy ? 
 did those minister the tears? Were they pray- 
 ers and tears, which were listed at York, 
 mustered on He worth Moor, and laid siege 
 to Hull for the guard of his person? Were 
 prayers and tears at so high a rate in Hol- 
 land that nothing could purchase them but 
 the crown-jewels? Yet they in Holland (such 
 word was sent us) sold them for guns, cara- 
 bines, mortar-pieces, cannons, and other 
 deadly instruments of war; which, when they 
 came to York, were all, no doubt, by the 
 
 ? P. W. ii.46. 
 
LIFE OF MILTON. 327 
 
 iiierit of -some great saint, suddenly trans- 
 formed into prayers and tears; and, being 
 divided into regiments and brigades, were the 
 only arms which mischieved us in all those 
 battles and encounters. These were his chief 
 arms, whatever we must call them ; and yet 
 such arms as they, who fought for the com- 
 monwealth, have by the help of better prayers 
 Vanquished and brought to nothing/' 
 
 In one passage of this work Milton has 
 been severe in his animadversions on the 
 King for having adopted a prayer from the 
 Arcadia of Sir Philip Sidney, and given it, 
 with a few immaterial alterations, as his own 
 to the bishop who attended him on the scaf- 
 fold. Whether Charles himself transcribed 
 this prayer from the Arcadia, or whether un- 
 conscious of its origin he received it from one 
 of his clerical attendants, the offence seems 
 to have been of a very pardonable nature, 
 and certainly undeserving of the harsh treat- 
 ment which it has experienced from his ad- 
 versary. The expressions, or the metaphysical 
 elements of a prayer, which are merely the 
 exciters of ideas in the minds of the speaker 
 or the hearer, are not, like the meats offered 
 upon an idol-altar, susceptible of pollution 
 from the object to whom they may be ad- 
 dressed; and are to be received or rejected 
 
328 XIFE OF MILTON. 
 
 bj any subsequent votarist as they may be 
 accommodated or otherwise to the purposes 
 of his particular devotion. The blame there- 
 fore of plagiarism is the highest which in this 
 instance can be imputed to the King; and 
 even to this perhaps he may not properly be 
 exposed, since, concluding the writer of the 
 prayer to be generally known, he might give 
 it as the just representative of his own feelings 
 and sentiments, and therefore in an allowable 
 sense as his own, to the attendant on his last 
 moments, bishop Juxon. 
 
 The disproportionate severity with which 
 Milton has arraigned this petty inadvertency, 
 rather than offence, has exposed him to the 
 charge of having been its author in the first 
 instance that he might subsequently be its 
 censurer. On the authority of Hills, the Pro- 
 tector's printer, and who afterwards, for the 
 emolument of the same office under James II, 
 professed himself a Roman catholic, Milton 
 is accused of having prevailed, with the assist- 
 ance of Bradshaw, on Du Gard, who was 
 then printing an edition of the Icon Basilike, 
 to bring discredit on that publication by in- 
 terpolating it with this prayer from the Arca- 
 dia. If a moment's belief were due to so 
 idle a tale, we might confidently affirm that 
 never before did men descend from such 
 
LIFE OF MILTOK. 329 
 
 heights of character to an object so con- 
 temptibly minute: an eagle stooping from his 
 proudest wing to seize upon an earthworm 
 would inadequately represent the folly of 
 Milton and Bradshaw in their condescension 
 to forge, for the purpose of casting a mere 
 atom into the heavily-charged scale of the 
 departed king. Fortunately however we pos- 
 sess the most satisfactory evidence of their 
 exemption from the imputed meanness. q By 
 Royston, who was reported to have received 
 the manuscript from the King, and not by 
 Du Gard the printer to the Parliament, was 
 that edition of the Icon printed in which the 
 controverted prayer was originally inserted; 
 and Royston's press was remote from the sus- 
 picion of any contact with Milton or his 
 supposed accomplice. Notwithstanding this 
 full though short confutation, which was first 
 adduced by Toland, of the testimony of the 
 unprincipled Hills, his calumny has been 
 revived by the infamous Lauder, admitted 
 by Lauder's friend and coadjutor, Dr. John- 
 
 1 1 have now in my possession the first edition of the Icon 
 Basilike printed in 1649 (for R. Royston at the Angel in Ivy- 
 lane) to which this prayer, called " A Prayer in time of Cap- 
 tivity," is attached. Let us not then again be told by Milton's 
 enemies of his forgery in this instance, or be soothed by his 
 friends with their hopes and their Ictief that he was incapable 
 of committing it. 
 
330 LIFE OF MILTON". 
 
 son/ and only faintly and timidly denied by 
 the last compiler of our author's life, Mr* 
 Todd.- 
 
 r As I have seldom, from the commencement of the pre- 
 sent work, adverted to this libeller of Milton^ my readers will 
 perhaps pardon me, if I dedicate this note to his honour* 
 Dr. Johnson tells us that <f the papers, which the King gave 
 to Dr. Juxon on the scaffold, the regicides took away, so that 
 they were at least the publishers of this prayer ; and Dr. 
 Birch, who examined the question with great care, was in- 
 clined to think them the forgers." Fuller, who must have 
 known and who would not have concealed the truth, shall 
 refute the former part of this egregious paragraph: and Dr. 
 Birch himself the latter. But "faction, Dr. Johnson! seldom 
 leaves a man honest, however it might find him." Fuller in his 
 JChurch History says, " His Majesty being upon the scaffold 
 held in his hand a small piece of paper, some four inches square, 
 containing heads whereon in his speech he intended to dilate 5 
 and a tall soldier, looking over the King's shoulders, read it as 
 the King held it in his hand. His speech ended, he gave that 
 small paper to the bishop of London. After his death, the offi- 
 cers demanded the paper of the bishop, who because of the depth 
 of his pocket, smallness of the paper, and the mixture of others 
 therewith could not so soon produce it as was required. At last 
 he brought - it forth j but therewith the others were unsatisfied, 
 (jealousy is quick of growth) as not the same which his Majesty 
 delivered to him. When presently the soldier, whose rudeness 
 had formerly overinspected it in the King's hand, attested this 
 the very same paper, and prevented farther suspicions, which 
 might have terminated to the bishop's trouble." (Fuller's Church 
 History of Britain, book xi, 236. ed. 1055.) So much for the 
 King's papers taken from Dr. Juxon on the scaffold by the regi- 
 cides! Let us now attend to Dr. Birch. [Life of Milton, p. xxxiii. 
 4to ed.] <f In the course of the controversy about the book, 
 
 s See Account of the Life of Milton, by Todd, p. 74. 
 
LIFE OF MILTON. 331 
 
 Of the Iconoclastes it only remains to be 
 
 Milton's charge upon the King of borrowing the prayer of Pamela 
 from Sir Philip Sidney's Arcadia, inserted in some editions of the 
 EWJW was retorted upon himself, as if this prayer had been added 
 by his contrivance who in conjunction with serjeant Bradshaw 
 had prevailed upon Du Card the printer to insert it, in order to 
 cast a disgrace upon the King, and blast the reputation of the 
 Icon. This supposed fact was advanced chiefly upon the au- 
 thority of Henry Hills the printer, who had frequently asserted 
 it to Dr. Gill and Dr. Bernard, his physicians, as they testified. 
 But Hills was not himself the printer who was dealt with in 
 this manner j and consequently he could have the story only 
 from hearsay j and though he was Cromwell's printer, yet af- 
 terwards he turned papist in the reign of James Hd. in order to 
 be that king's printer 5 and it was at that time he used to relate 
 this story. Besides which, it is highly improbable that Milton 
 and Bradshaw should make him their confident unnecessarily 
 in such an affair, and laugh in his presence at their imposing 
 such a cheat upon the world; or that he should conceal it dur- 
 ing the life of the former, who survived the Restoration so many- 
 years. So that such a testimony from such a person is not to 
 be admitted against a man, who, as his learned and ingenious 
 editor (Bishop Newton) observes, had a soul above being guilty 
 of so mean an action!" 
 
 I must be permitted to prolong this note by remarking on an 
 attack which has been made on another passage of the Icono- 
 clastes. In a note on Milton's first elegy, Mr. Warton observes 
 <f His (Milton's) warmest poetical predilections were at last 
 totally obliterated by civil and religious enthusiasm. Seduced 
 by the gentle eloquence of fanaticism" (make of it, gentle 
 reader, what sense you can,) " he listened no longer to the 
 wild and native wood-notes of ' fancy's sweetest child.' In 
 his Iconoclastes he censures King Charles for studying ' One 
 whom we know was the closet companion of his solitudes, 
 William Shakspere.' This remonstrance, which not only re- 
 sulted from his abhorrence of a king, but from his disappro- 
 bation of plays, would have come with more propriety from 
 
33$ LIFE 6 MILTON. 
 
 said that it was first printed in 1649; tliat a 
 
 Prynne or Hugh Peters." Then follows a just panegyric on the 
 cultivation of the King's mind and the elegance of his taste. 
 
 To talk of '* the poetical predilections" of the future author of 
 Paradise Lost as totally obliterated, or to impute an abhorrence 
 of plays to the man who not only wrote Samson Agonistes, 
 but who has left behind him a : variety of subjects for the drama 
 selected, at a period subsequent to the publication of the Icono- 
 .clastes, from profane history, among which is the story f 
 Macbeth, is abundantly strange, if we must not call it absurd. 
 But to enter into a serious contest with the perverse imbecillity 
 of this note of Mr. Warton's would be to the last degree idle. 
 The criminated passage in the Iconoclastes, which I shall pro- 
 duce, will prove that it was not in Milton's contemplation to 
 censure the King for studying Shakespeare} and that Mr. Warton 
 must either not have understood what he quoted, or, what my 
 opinion of his probity will not allow me to suspect, must have 
 quoted with a determination to misrepresent. Speaking of the 
 pieces of devotion with which the Icon is so thickly bestrewn, 
 Milton observes that * " he who from such a kind of psalmistry 
 or any other verbal devotion, without the pledge and earnest of 
 suitable deeds, can be persuaded of a zeal and true righteous- 
 ness in the person, hath much yet to learn and knows not that 
 the deepest policy of a tyrant hath been ever to counterfeit 
 religious : and Aristotle in his Politics hath mentioned that 
 special craft among twelve other tyrannical sophisms, Neither 
 want we examples. Andronicus Con-menus, the Byzantine em- 
 peror, though a most cruel tyrant, is reported by Nicetas to 
 have been a constant reader of St. Paul's epistles j and by con- 
 tinual study to have so incorporated the phrase and style of that 
 transcendent apostle into all his familiar letters that the imi- 
 tation seemed to vie with the original. Yet this availed not to 
 deceive the people of that empire, who, notwithstanding the 
 saint's vizard, tore him to pieces for his tyranny, From stories 
 of this nature, both ancient and modern, which abound, the 
 poets also, and some English, have been in this point so mind- 
 
 *P.W. ii. 40Q. 
 
LIFE OF MILTON". 333 
 
 second edition of it appeared in the follow- 
 ing year; that in 1652 it was again published 
 in London by Du Card in a French trans- 
 lation ; and that it received two answers, one 
 with the title of 'EMM oM\oL<f\oq (Icon aclastos, 
 or the Image unbroken) in 1651; and the 
 other, called Vindiciae Carolinae, in 1692. 
 Though it was more consistent with Mil- 
 
 ful of decorum as to put never more pious words in the mouth 
 of any person than of a tyrant. I shall not instance an ab- 
 struse author, wherein the King might be less conversant, but 
 pne, whom we well know was the closet companion of his 
 solitudes, William Shakspeare; who introduces the person of 
 Richard III speaking in as high a strain of piety and mortifica- 
 tion as is uttered in any passage of this book; and sometimes 
 to the same sense and purpose with some words in this place : 
 t( I intended," saith he (the King) tf not only to oblige my 
 friends but my enemies:" the like saith Richard (act ii. scene 1.) 
 " I do not know that Englishman alive 
 With whom my soul is any jot at odds 
 More than the infant that is born to-night 
 J thank my God for my humility." 
 
 Mr. Waldron, in his republication of Downes's Roscius An- 
 glicanus," has preceded me, as I am told, (for I have not read 
 Mr. Waldron's work,) in the detection of this false arraignment 
 of Milton by the late Poet Laureat, a circumstance of which I 
 was not aware when I first printed my note. But this repeated 
 refutation of the injurious falsehood has not prevented its revival, 
 (with the aggravation of making Milton contemptuously call 
 Shakespeare a player,) by Mr. Walter Scott in his newly published 
 Life of Dryden." * Are we hence to conclude that this slander of 
 Milton is to be employed, as a common place, by every writer 
 who may be attached to the despicable Stuarts, and who can force 
 it into his page? 
 
 * See Scott's Life of Dryden, p. 18. 
 
334 LIFE OF MILTON. 
 
 ton's object to direct his reply immediately 
 against the King and consequently to con- 
 sider the Icon Basilike as the production of 
 the royal pen, he could not altogether re- 
 frain from intimating his suspicions of its 
 authenticity. " But as to the author of these 
 soliloquies/' (he observes,) " whether it were 
 undoubtedly the late King, as is vulgarly be- 
 lieved, or any secret coadjutor, and some 
 stick not to name him, it can add nothing 
 to nor shall take from the weight, if any be, 
 of reason which he brings/' 11 " But the mat- 
 ter here considerable is not whether the King, 
 or his household rhetorician, have made a pithy 
 declamation against tumults, but first whe- 
 ther there were tumults or not/ JX &c. To 
 these suspicions Milton was obviously led 
 by the internal evidence of the work, which 
 seemed strongly tainted with the pedantry 
 of the gown and discovered in its style a 
 more scholastic and artificial form than was 
 likely to be the result of the education and 
 the habits of a prince. 
 
 On a passage in this production, in which 
 is introduced the word, demagogue, at that 
 time not common in our language, our author 
 remarks, " Setting aside the affrightment of 
 
 P. W. ii. 421. * Ibid. 398. 
 
LIFE OF MILTON. 335 
 
 this goblin-word; for the King, by his leave, 
 cannot coin English, as he could money, to 
 be current: and it is believed this wording 
 was above his known style and orthography, 
 and accuses the whole composure to be con- 
 scious of some other author/' 7 
 
 " These petty glosses and conceits/' says 
 the Iconoclastes in another place, " on the 
 high and secret judgments of God, besides 
 the boldness of unwarrantable commenting, 
 are so weak and shallow and so like the 
 quibbles of a court sermon, that we may 
 safely reckon them either fetched from such 
 a pattern, or that the hand of some house- 
 hold priest foisted them in/' 
 
 These feelings of doubt respecting the au- 
 thor of the Icon were not wholly confined to 
 Milton : for the same internal evidence of 
 forgery Avhich in this instance had influenced 
 his judgment, was sufficiently strong to in- 
 fluence the conviction of others. In an able 
 work, published, soon after the Iconoclastes, 
 in 1649, with the title of" 'E^aV a^Qtvj" (Icon 
 alethine) or the true Image, the charge of 
 spuriousness is brought and urged with great 
 power against the Icon; which is ascribed by 
 this anonymous writer, who exhibits much of 
 
 *P.W. ii.427. z Ibid. 452, 
 
336 LIFE OF MILTON. 
 
 Milton's spirit, to a doctor of the Church of 
 England, seeking, by an enterprize so me- 
 ritorious with his party as this serviceable 
 fraud, to force his way on a fortunate change 
 of things to some of the rich preferments of 
 his church. To this work is prefixed a fron- 
 tispiece, in which, on a curtain's being drawn 
 aside by a hand issuing from the roof, is dis- 
 covered a dignitary of the English Church in 
 his full canonical dress : and beneath are 
 inscribed the following lines, which, in 
 their close connexion with my subject, have 
 sufficient merit to justify me for inserting 
 them. 
 
 The curtain's drawn : all may perceive the plot 4 
 And him, who truly the black babe begot. 
 Whose sable mantle makes me bold to saj r , 
 A Phaeton Sol's chariot ruled that day. 
 Presumptuous Priest ! to skip into the throne; 
 And make the King his bastard issue own! 
 The author therefore hath conceived it meet, 
 The doctor should do penance in this sheet. a 
 
 But neither the charge of forgery against 
 the King's book, as it was then called, thus 
 
 a This work, (which was printed in London by Thoma? 
 Paine in 1649) was answered the same year, by a very inferior 
 writer in a pamphlet entitled " 'EooJv ij #*?-/' or " the faithful 
 Image," and these productions may be regarded as the precur- 
 sors of that long and violent controversy, which, after some 
 interval, ensued on the subject of the authenticity of the Icon; 
 
LIFE OF MILTON. 337 
 
 directly and articulately pronounced ; nor the 
 suspicions of imposition, which were clearly 
 expressed in the Iconoclastes, found any echo 
 in the general mind; and the Icon, conti- 
 nuing to make proselytes to the cause of its 
 reputed author, retained the idolatrous regard 
 of a numerous party, whose prejudices it 
 flattered and to whose interests it was essen- 
 tially subservient. The first shock to the pub- 
 lic conviction, respecting its genuineness, 
 was occasioned by the discovery on a blank 
 page of one of these books, when offered for 
 sale by auction with the library of the first 
 earl of Anglesey, of a memorandum, b in that 
 nobleman's own hand-writing, attesting the 
 formal disavowal of the Icon as a work of 
 their fathers by Charles II and the duke of 
 York. 
 
 b The memorandum is as follows: " King Charles the Se- 
 cond and the duke of York did both (in the last session of par- 
 liament, 1675, when 1 showed them, in the lords house, the 
 written copy of this book, wherein are some corrections and 
 alterations written with the late King Charles the First's own 
 hand,) assure me that this was none of the said King's compiling, 
 but made by Dr. Gauden, bishop of Exeter: which I here in- 
 sert for the undeceiving of others in this point, by attesting so 
 much under my own hand. ANGLESEY." 
 
 The sale in question was in the year 1 686', by the celebrated 
 auctioneer, Millington, who accidentally saw the memorandum 
 as he was turning over the pages of the book during the slow 
 bidding of the auction, 
 
 2 
 
338 LIFE OF MILTON. 
 
 On this strong excitement of suspicion, 
 reference was made to Dr. Walker, a clergy- 
 man of Essex, between whom and Dr. Gau- 
 den, asserted by the royal brothers to be the 
 writer of the Icon and at this time deceased, 
 a confidential intimacy was known to have 
 subsisted ; and the testimony of this respect- 
 able divine w~as so circumstantial and con- 
 clusive as apparently to leave no wreck of a 
 doubt floating upon the subject. 
 
 Dr. Gauden, as his friend declared, had 
 communicated to him the first seminal idea 
 of the Icon Basilike and the succeeding 
 growth of the work, as it branched into chap- 
 ters and assumed the proportions of its form. 
 Dr. Walker stated the disapprobation, which 
 he had intimated, of the intended impo- 
 sition on the public, with the apology ad- 
 vanced in reply by his friend ; and then re- 
 lated the circumstance of his having accom- 
 panied Dr. Gauden to the bishop of Salis- 
 bury, (Dr. Duppa,) who was an accom- 
 plice in the plan, and who, at that meeting, 
 agreed to contribute two chapters on subjects 
 which he recommended as necessary to the 
 completion of the work. Dr. Walker pro- 
 ceeded to affirm that he had been made ac- 
 quainted by Dr. Gauden with the fact of his 
 having transmitted, by the marquis of Hert- 
 
LIFE OF MILTON. 339 
 
 ford, a copy of this production to the King 
 during his confinement in the Isle of Wight ; 
 and that Dr. Walker himself had been in- 
 trusted with a part of the manuscript for the 
 purpose of delivering it, under certain pre- 
 cautions, to Royston the printer through the 
 intervention of Dr. Gauden's steward. Dr. 
 Walker further reported that his friend, after 
 the Restoration, had informed him of the 
 transaction's having been made known to the 
 duke of York, who in acknowledgment of 
 the service had promised the bishoprick of 
 Winchester to this efficient promoter of the 
 royal cause : a promise which was afterwards 
 ill performed by his translation to the see of 
 Worcester. In addition to all this mass of 
 proof, Dr. Walker lastly asserted that many 
 of the expressions in the devotional parts 
 of the Icon were known to be peculiar to Dr. 
 Gauden, by whom they had been frequently 
 used in his religious exercises, both in pri- 
 vate and in public. 
 
 To Dr. Walker's account, which it con- 
 firms in every essential particular, the written 
 narrative left by Mrs. Gauden, the bishop's 
 widow, adds many circumstances which com- 
 plete, if any thing were before wanted to 
 complete, the integrity and roundness of the 
 evidence. In this narrative, which is un- 
 
340 LIFE OF MILTON. 
 
 questionably authentic, Mrs. Gauden states 
 the original intention of her husband when 
 he planned the work; the title of Suspiria 
 Regalia, or the Royal Sighs, which he first 
 affixed to it and which he subsequently 
 changed to that of Icon Basilike; the con- 
 versation, reported by the marquis of Hert- 
 ford to have passed between bishop Duppa 
 and the King, when the manuscript with 
 the name and the design of the author was 
 communicated to his Majesty; the person, (a 
 royalist divine of the name of c Symmonds,) 
 by whose means her husband had obtained 
 the printing of a part of the work at Roy- 
 ston's press, where it had been received as 
 the immediate production of the King's; the 
 discovery and the interruption of the print- 
 ing with the danger which had compelled 
 her husband to abscond, in consequence of 
 the arrest of Symmonds whose opportune 
 death, immediately after his apprehension, 
 
 c This Mr. Symmonds, of Rayne in Essex, was ejected from 
 his benefice by the Parliament in 1642, for preaching the doc- 
 trines of passive obedience and the divine right of kings. He 
 avowed and justified in a pamphlet called " The loyal Subject's 
 Belief, ' the offensive doctrines which had been imputed to him. 
 His royalist spirit is fierce against the Parliament. " If David's 
 heart smote him," he says, " for cutting off Saul's garment, what 
 would it have done if he had kept him from his castles, towns, 
 and ships?" Neale's Hist, of the Puritans, v. iii. c. 1. 
 
LIFE OF MILTON. 341 
 
 had relieved the fears of his employer; the 
 discourse of Dr.Morley, d after the Restoration, 
 with her husband, in which that prelate had 
 talked of the service rendered by Dr. Gauden 
 to the royal cause, both at home and abroad, 
 by writing the kings book, and had mentioned 
 that he had communicated the whole business 
 to Sir Edward Hyde, who had discovered 
 much approbation of Dr. Gauden's work and 
 conduct. Mrs. Gauden concludes her narra- 
 tive by assigning an illness, which threatened 
 his life, as the immediate cause of her husband's 
 making the important disclosure to the King, 
 (Charles II;) who was much pleased with it, 
 and confessed " that he did often wonder 
 that his father should have gotten time and 
 privacy enough in his troubles to compose so 
 excellent a piece, and written with so much 
 learning." 
 
 After this minute and satisfactory rela- 
 tion, which certainly does not require and 
 indeed will scarcely admit of any corrobo- 
 ration, it may be superfluous to notice two 
 letters written by Dr. Gauden, one to the 
 duke of York and the other to the lord chan- 
 cellor, Hyde, urging the writer's services with 
 reference to the Icon; or an answer from the 
 
 Consecrated bishop of Worcester on the 28th of Oct. 
 
342 LIFE OF MILTON. 
 
 lord chancellor, in which he says to Dr. Gau- 
 den, " the particular, you mention, has in- 
 deed been imparted to me as a secret: I am 
 sorry that I ever knew it ; and when it ceases 
 to be a secret it will please none but Mr. 
 Milton." 
 
 To this power of testimony, sufficient as 
 one would imagine to force the most im- 
 pregnable infidelity, the unyielding spirit of 
 party prejudice has attempted an opposi- 
 tion. Against the assertion of the two sons 
 of Charles, against the letters of the lord 
 chancellor, Hyde and of Dr. Gauden, against 
 the explicit and specific depositions of the 
 confidential friend and of the widow of Dr. 
 Gauden have been thrown into the scale the 
 inconsistent or the inconclusive testimonies 
 of persons, who have affirmed either that 
 the manuscript in dispute was found among 
 the King's papers at Naseby and had been 
 restored to him by Fairfax; or that it had 
 been seen, and even partly read in the King's 
 own hand upon his table in the Isle of Wight; 
 or that it had been quoted by the King, or 
 that it contained things similar to what the 
 King had been heard to say. 
 
 My readers probably would not thank 
 me if I were to lengthen this digression, al. 
 ready too far extended, by entering fully 
 
LIFE OF MILTON. 343 
 
 into the examination of all the evidence which 
 has been adduced, and of all the ingenuity 
 which has been exhibited on this much con^ 
 troverted question. What I have said how- 
 ever may enable them to form their deci- 
 sion upon the subject; and may perhaps 
 unite their wonder with mine at the strange 
 disingenuousness of Mr. Hume. " The proofs 
 brought/' says this historian, fC that this work 
 (the Icon) is or is not the King's, are so con- 
 vincing that if an impartial reader peruse any 
 one side apart, he will think it impossible 
 that arguments could be produced sufficient 
 to counterbalance so strong an evidence ; 
 and, when he compares both sides, he will be 
 some time at a loss to fix any determination. 
 Should an absolute suspense of judgment be 
 found difficult or disagreeable in so interest- 
 ing a question, I must confess that I much 
 incline to give the preference to the argu- 
 ments of the royalists/* Admirable! but let 
 us proceed. " The testimonies, which prove 
 that performance to be the King's, are more 
 numerous, more certain and direct" (what! 
 than the testimonies of Dr. Walker and of 
 Mrs. Gauden?) " than those on the other 
 side. This is the case even if we consider 
 the external evidence; but when we weigh 
 the internal, derived from the style and com- 
 
344 LtFE OF MILTON. 
 
 position, there is no comparison. These me- 
 ditations resemble in elegance, puritjr, neat- 
 ness and simplicity the genius of those per- 
 formances, which we know with certainty 
 to have flowed from the royal pen ; but are 
 so unlike the bombast, perplexed, rhetorical 
 and corrupt style of Dr. Gauden, to whom 
 they are ascribed, that no human testimony 
 seems sufficient to convince us that he was 
 the author/' This certainly is excellent; af- 
 fecting to exhibit the most exact poise with 
 one greatly preponderating scale, the most 
 delicate and tremulous reserve with the most 
 determined preference, the most specious 
 ostentation of candour with the most inju- 
 rious exertion of prejudice. 
 
 On the internal evidence from the style 
 and composition of this contested work, the 
 opinion, which is here so authoritatively 
 given, is at direct variance with that of Mil- 
 ton: but we might safely refer the cause at 
 issue, together with the credit of our author's 
 judgment, to the sentence of any reader of 
 common taste and erudition. Having passed, 
 as it is said, through fifty editions 6 in the 
 
 e Forty-seven impressions of the Icon were circulated in 
 England alone 5 and 48,500 copies sold. In the very year of its 
 publication it was translated into Latin and French. 
 . Lord Clarendon's silence respecting this work is admitted 
 
LIFE OF MILtOK. 345 
 
 space of one year, the Icon must still be in 
 many hands; and we must consequently 
 stand under the correction of numbers when 
 we affirm, in opposition to the northern his- 
 torian, that the composition of this little vo- 
 lume is radically different from that of the 
 writings which unquestionably came from 
 the pen of Charles ; that its pages are some- 
 times strewn with false flowers and the glit- 
 ter of fanciful conceits; that its style is an- 
 tithetical and artificially constructed, and 
 that it is, to avail myself of the words of the 
 acute and spirited Toland, infinitely more 
 like to that of a doctor than to that of a king. 
 Its authenticity indeed was questioned by 
 many, before the production of those testi- 
 monies which we have noticed against it, in 
 consequence alone of that internal evidence, 
 adduced by Mr. Hume, with so much san- 
 guine assurance, in its support/ 
 
 by Mt. Hume as an argument against its authenticity. The 
 duke of York declared to bishop Burner., in 16/3, that it was 
 written by Dr. Gauden and not by the King. Bishop Burnet's 
 Life, p. 51. 
 
 f The acute and able Laing, whom I have already had more 
 than one occasion to cite, has drawn up the evidence on this sub- 
 ject with a very masterly hand. I had written my account of 
 the literary imposture in question, before I read his; and it gave 
 me particular satisfaction to find my opinions precisely the same 
 with those which he has so powerfully supported. He refers the 
 reader for a specimen of Gauden's style, and for a proof of its 
 
346 LIFE OF MILTON. 
 
 In this short pause of the principal ac- 
 
 resemblance to that of the Icon, to that prelate's Life of 
 Hooker and the preceding dedication. The dedication, with which 
 I am acquainted, fully justifies this reference, and flatly contra- 
 dicts the testimony of Hume respecting the perplexed and bom- 
 bast composition which he imputes to Dr. Gauden. Laing's Hist, 
 of Scot. iii. 405, &c. That my readers may form some judg- 
 ment for themselves on this point of taste, I will present 
 them with an extract from the Icon Basilike, and with one of 
 Charles's papers written in reply to Mr. Henderson. 
 
 " But here honour and justice, due to my successors, forbid 
 me to yield to such a total alienation of that power from them, 
 which civillity and duty (no less than justice and honour) should 
 have forbad them to have asked of me. For, although I can be 
 content to eclipse my owne beams to satisfy their fears, who think 
 that they must needs be scorched or blinded if I should shine in 
 the full lustre of kingly power, wherewith God and the laws have 
 invested me ; yet I will never consent to put out the sun of so- 
 vereignty to all posterity and succeeding kings; whose just reco- 
 very of their rights from unjust usurpations and extortions shall 
 never be prejudiced or obstructed by any act of mine; which 
 indeed would not be more injurious to succeeding kings than to 
 my subjects ; whom I desire to leave in a condition not wholly 
 desperate for the future; so as by law to be ever subjected to 
 those many factious distractions which must needs follow the 
 many-headed Hydra of government; which, as it makes a show 
 to the people to have more eyes to foresee, so they will find it 
 hath more mouths too which must be satisfied : and (at best) it 
 hath rather a monstrosity than any thing of perfection beyond 
 that of right monarchy; where counsel may be in many as the 
 senses, but the supreme power can be but in one as the head. 
 
 " Happily, when men have tried the horrors and malignant 
 influence which will certainly follow my inforced darkness and 
 eclipse, (occasioned by the interposition and shadow of that 
 body, which as the moon receiveth its chiefest light from me) 
 they will at length more esteem and welcome the restored glory 
 and blessing of the sun's light." Icon Bas. p. 63, 64. 
 
OF MILTON. 34? 
 
 tion, let me mention that, on his appoint- 
 
 His Majesty s first Paper. 
 
 " Mr. HENDERSON, 
 
 (f I know very well what a great disadvantage it 
 is for me to maintain an argument of divinity with so able and 
 learned a man as yourself, it being your, not my profession; 
 which really was the cause that made me desire to hear some 
 learned man argue my opinion with you, of whose abilities I 
 might be confident, that I should not be led into an error, for 
 want of having all which could be said, layed open unto me : for, 
 indeed, my humour is such, that I am still partial for that side 
 which I imagine suffers for the weakness of those that maintain it, 
 always thinking that equal champions would cast the balance on 
 the other part: yet since that you (thinking that it will save time) 
 desire to go another way, I shall not contest with you in it; but 
 treating you as my physician, give you leave to take your own 
 way of cure ; only I thought fit to warn you, lest if you (not I) 
 should be mistaken in this, you would be fain (in a manner) to 
 begin anew. 
 
 " Then know that from my infancy I was blest with the 
 King my father's love, which, I thank God, was an unvaluable 
 happiness to me all his days ; and among all his cares for my 
 education his chief was to settle me right in religion; in the 
 true knowledge of which, he made himself so eminent to all 
 the world, that I am sure none can call in question the bright- 
 ness of his fame in that particular, without showing their own 
 ignorant base malice: he it was, who laid in me the grounds 
 of Christianity, which to this day I have been constant in; so 
 that whether the worthiness of my instructor be considered 
 or the not few years that I have been settled in my principles, 
 it ought to be no strange thing, if it be found no easy work 
 to make me alter them : and the rather, that hitherto, I have 
 (according to Saint Paul's rule, Rom. xiv. 22). been happy in 
 ' not condemning myself, in that thing which I allow:' thn* 
 
348 LIFE OF MILTON 1 . 
 
 ment to the office of Latin Secretary, Mil- 
 having shewed you how, it remains to tell you what I believe in 
 relation to these present miserable distractions. 
 
 ' No one thing made me more reverence the reformation of 
 my mother, the Church of England, than that it was done (ac- 
 cording to the Apostle's defence, Acts xxiv. 18) ' neither with 
 multitude, nor with tumult/ but legally and orderly, and by 
 those whom I conceive to have only the reforming power; 
 which with many other inducements, made me always confi- 
 dent that the work was very perfect as to essentials, of which 
 number church government being undoubtedly one, I put no 
 question but that would have been likewise altered if there 
 had been cause; which opinion of mine was soon turned into 
 more than a confidence, when I perceived that in this parti- 
 cular (as I must say of all the rest) we retained nothing but 
 according as it was deduced from the apostles to be the constant 
 universal custom of the primitive church ; and that it was 
 of such consequence, as by the alteration of it we should de- 
 prive ourselves of a lawful priesthood, and then, how the 
 sacraments can be duly administered, is easy to judge : these 
 are the principal reasons, which make me believe that bishops 
 are necessary for a church, and I think sufficient for me (if I 
 had no more) not to give my consent for their expulsion out of 
 England: but I have another obligation, that to my particular 
 is a no less tie of conscience, which is, my * coronation oath : 
 now if (as S. Paul saith, Rom. xiv. 23.) ' He that doubteth is 
 damned if he eat,' what can I expect, if I should, not only 
 give way knowingly to my people's sinning, but likewise be 
 perjured my self? ' 
 
 " Now consider, ought I not to " keep my self from pre- 
 sumptuous sins?' and you know who says, ( What doth it profit 
 a man, though he should gain the whole world, and lose his own 
 soul ? Wherefore my constant maintenance of episcopacy in Eng- 
 
 '* This coronation oath, unhappily misunderstood, has since 
 obstructed the accomplishment of some just and beneficial 
 
 measures. 
 
LIFE OF MILTON. 349 
 
 ton removed in the first instance to a lodg- 
 ing in the house of one Thompson at Char- 
 ing-Cross, and afterwards to apartments in 
 Scotland-yard. Here his wife produced her 
 third child, a son, who died in his infancy 
 on the 16'th of March 1650; and in 1652 our 
 author shifted his residence to Petty France, 
 where he occupied for eight years, till the 
 crisis of the Restoration, a handsome house, 
 opening into St. James's park and adjoining 
 to the mansion of lord Scudamore. 
 
 No sooner had Milton finished his mas- 
 terly reply to the posthumous work, as it 
 was then generally considered, of the late 
 King's, than he was again called upon to 
 enter the lists as the assertor of the Com- 
 monwealth of England: but he was now op- 
 posed to a more formidable antagonist, and 
 was to contend on a far more ample field. 
 
 land, (where there was never any other government since Chris- 
 tianity was in this kingdom,) methinks should be rather com- 
 mended than wondered at ; my conscience directing me to main- 
 tain the laws of the land j which being only my endeavours at 
 this time, I desire to know of you, what warrant there is in the 
 word of God for subjects to endeavour to force their King's con- 
 science? or to make him alter laws against his will? If this be 
 not my present case, I shall be glad to be mistaken; or, if my 
 judgment in religion hath been misled all this time, I shall be 
 willing to be better directed; till when you mast excuse me to 
 be constant to the grounds which the King my father taught me. 
 Newcastle, May 29, 1(546. " C. R." 
 
350 LIFE OF MILTON 
 
 His refutation of the Icon Basilikk had been 
 confined nearly within the pale of his own 
 country: but the powers of his mind were 
 now to be exhibited to Europe, and the 
 whole circle of the civilized and Christian 
 community was to witness his triumph or his 
 defeat. Charles, the son of the deceased mo- 
 narch, eager to blend his own with the ge- 
 neral cause of kings and desirous perhaps 
 of evincing by the same act the fervor of 
 his filial piety, determined on engaging the 
 abilities of some great literary character to 
 urge his appeal to the world against the vic- 
 torious enemies of his house; and, for the 
 accomplishment of his purpose, the voice of 
 fame immediately directed his attention to 
 Salmasius, at that time an honorary professor 
 in the university of Leyden. 
 
 Claudius Salmasius, or z Claude de Sau- 
 maise, was of an honourable, or, as it has 
 been termed, a noble family seated near the 
 town of Semur h in the old province of La 
 Bourgogne, of the parliament of which his 
 father was a member. From his mother he 
 
 s The orthography of this celebrated scholar's name fluctuates 
 between " Sauraaise," and " Soumaize." By his friend Sarrau 
 it is written in the former mode; and by Vorstius in his Eloge 
 funebre in the latter. 
 
 h Now in the Department of Cote d'Or. 
 
LIFE OF MILTON. 351 
 
 contracted a strong bias to the religious 
 principles of the protestants; and an extra- 
 ordinary proficiency in literature, at an early 
 period of his life, soon advanced him to a 
 foremost place among the eminent scholars 
 of that age, the Casaubons, the Gothofreds, 
 the Gruters and the De Thous. The vast eru- 
 dition and the superior critical acumen which 
 he displayed in some of his publications, 
 in his treatise " De lingu& Hellenistica," 
 and particularly in his large work, the " Pli- 
 nianae exercitationes in Solinum," so in- 
 creased and propagated his renown that dif- 
 ferent powers are said to have contested for 
 the honour of his residence in their states. 
 The Pope, the Venetians, and the two suc- 
 cessive governors of his own country, Rich- 
 lieu and Mazarin, attempted to fix him, as 
 it is affirmed, in their service by the most 
 liberal offers: but, preferring principle to in- 
 terest and independence to promotion, he de- 
 clined these inviting prospects, and resigned 
 himself to the unrestrained indulgence of his 
 own literary and religious inclinations. The 
 papacy and the w r hole fabric of the hie- 
 rarchy had been made the objects of his vehe- 
 ment attack; and now, in the full pride of 
 his reputation, with the substantial enjoy- 
 ment of a pension from the government, he 
 
352 LIFE OF MILTON. 
 
 was reposing in the bosom of a protestant 
 republic, when his assistance was courted by 
 the letters and the presents ! of the English 
 prince. 
 
 It had been well for the professor if on 
 this occasion he had not relinquished that 
 wise and virtuous abstinence which had for- 
 merly regulated his conduct. But when a 
 king sued to be his client, and the cause 
 of sovereigns to be supported by his pen, 
 the appeal to his vanity was too powerful to 
 be resisted, and, in an hour the most inau- 
 spicious to his future fame and happiness, 
 he undertook the defence of prelacy, roy- 
 alty, and Charles. 
 
 The result of this engagement, a bulky 
 volume entitled " Defensio Regia pro Carolo 
 primo ad Carolum secundum," made its ap- 
 pearance before the conclusion of 1649, and 
 is reported to have generally disappointed the 
 expectation of the learned. k The work, which 
 
 5 A hundred jacobuses accompanied the prince's application. 
 
 k The inconsistency and venal accommodation, of which it 
 convicted its author, were unquestionably distressing to some, 
 who were personally attached to him. Claude Sarrau, one of 
 his confidential friends, a learned member of the parliament 
 of Paris, having previously warned him of the danger and 
 impropriety of the undertaking, expostulated very freely and 
 strongly with him on his conduct in its execution. Not hav- 
 ing the epistles of Sarrau, an edition of which was published 
 
LIFE OF MILTON. 353 
 
 Salmasius had presumptuously undertaken, 
 
 by Burman, immediately to refer to, I shall content myself 
 with an extract respecting them from the learned and accurate 
 Dr. Birch. (Account of the Life and writings of Milton^ 
 p. xxxiv.) 
 
 " Claudius Sarravius, counsellor in the parliament of Paris, 
 and an intimate friend of Salmasius, in a letter to him dated at 
 Paris, Feb. 18, l65O, expresses his surprise that he should write 
 in the preface to his Defensio with so much zeal in defence of 
 the bishops of England, when he had in another work of his 
 ' De Presbyteris et Episcopis,' printed at Leyden 1041, in Svo. 
 
 under the fictitious name of Wallo Messalinus, attacked them 
 i 
 
 with the utmost acrimony ; which he observes might expose 
 him to the imputation of a time-server, who paid no regard to 
 truth itself. ' Hoc sane dicent esse r-Jj KOLI^SJ 8\sviv potius 
 <]uam rfj a'A,ij0ga tsreftecrOew.' And in another letter, dated 
 Paris, March 5, of the same year, he reminds him of this in- 
 consistency, which would make his sincerity questioned. ' De 
 necessitate episcopates ^Anglican! quod obiter dixras in praefa- 
 t-ione, ut jam monui, fortius adhuc urges ipso opere, contra 
 <lictata Wallonis Messalinij quod tibi vitio vertetur, diceturque 
 te calidum et frigidum eodem ex ore efflare, nee generositati tuae 
 id convenire existimabitur.' Salmasius having wrote an answer 
 to Sarravius upon this point, the latter replied to him thus in a 
 letter dated March 12, 1650. ( Te ergo habtrrras reura faten- 
 lem : sive enim tempori servias sive causa-, nobis perinde est. 
 Atqui dicebatur antea te d'ffejrhv vZv \yzw t qui ne ipsi quidem 
 Jovi, Termini in modum, cederet. -Praeterea credo non licere 
 Advocate vel Itegio, in causa domini sui, aliter dicere publice 
 quam privatim loquatur et sentiat: quemadmodum non sunt 
 diversse leges, quibus domi utimur, ab il'lis, juxta quas in foro 
 placita decernuntur. At scripsisti, inquis, ex imperio. Ergo 
 potest tibi imperari ut sententiam mutes: Epictetus tamen tuus 
 docet hoc esse fu>v s$ ij^v, atque ita esse in potestate nostra ut 
 invitis non eripiatur. Sed haec ingrata omitto, &c. * We have 
 now your own confession of your fault ; for it is the same thing 
 to us, whether you adapt yourself to tbe times or to the cause. 
 
 2 A 
 
334 LIFE OF MILTON. 
 
 he was not perhaps qualified lo execute; and 
 he might at length be made sensible that, with 
 the tenaeious memory, the quick combina- 
 tion, the acute and microscopic vision of the 
 scholar and the critic, a man might be des- 
 
 But before this, it was said, that you was a man of an inflexible 
 disposition, who, like the god Terminus, would not give way to 
 Jove himself. Besides, I am of opinion that even a king's advo- 
 cate ought not, in his master's cause, to speak in public differently 
 from what he speaks and thinks in private -, as the laws which 
 we use in private life are not at all different from those, upon 
 which decrees are made in courts of judicature. But you 
 wrote, you say, " by command." And was it possible for any 
 commands to prevail on you to change y ur opinion ? Your 
 favourite Epictetus tells us, that our opinion is one of those 
 things in our power, and so far in our power, that nothing can 
 take it away from us without our consent." 
 
 I have Sarrau's Epistles now in my hand : but I find Dr. 
 Birch's extracts from them so correct as to make it unnecessary 
 for me either to write a new note or to alter my former one. I 
 have only supplied the whole of his last citation, that the transla- 
 tion may be verified by the original. Sarrau was a man of much 
 learning, talents, and integrity. His ability and erudition are 
 unquestionably proved by his letters, and his probity by his 
 remonstrances against the inconsistency of his friend, Salmasius : 
 for whom his respect was nearly boundless. With Sarrau it was 
 amicus Socrates sec} magis arnica veritas. The distich, which he 
 wrote under a portrait of Salmasius, will bear ample testimony to. 
 the exalted opinion, which the Parisian Counsellor entertained of 
 the Leyden professor. 
 
 Quantum scire homipem Divina Potentia vellet, 
 Ostendit terris, SALMASIUW&UE dedit. 
 
 The estimable Sarrau died of a fever at Paris on Easter Eve in 
 1051. [See Burm. Syll. Hi. 266.] 
 
LITE OF MILTON. 355 
 
 titute of that span and grasp of mind which 
 are requisite to wield the large and com- 
 plex system of political wisdom. There is cer- 
 tainly a pervading littleness throughout the 
 whole of " the Royal Defence/' Its author, 
 like Martha in the Gospel, " is troubled 
 about many things/' and seems to be over- 
 whelmed with trifles. For argument he fre- 
 quently applies to frivolous etymology: he 
 accumulates quotations, suggested to him by 
 the officiousness of his memory, very often 
 without judgment or felicity; and he puts 
 together his unequal and ill-assorted mate- 
 rials without the arrangement and the plan 
 of a master. After all however, " the Royal 
 Defence" is no contemptible production. It 
 amasses nearly all that can be obtained on 
 the subject: in its management it is some^ 
 times skilful 1 and artificial, as in its execu- 
 
 1 In the following passages may be distinguished the height- 
 ening and the aggravation of a masterly hand. 
 
 c Si agendi modus inspiciatur, plurimi non sicca morte 
 reges ad generum Cereris, ut cum poeta loquar, descenderunt. 
 Aut gladius privati parricidae aliquem luce privavit, aut miles 
 ab aliquo procerum subornatus vitae principis insidias fecit, aut 
 potio veneni alium exanimavit, aut carceris mala mansio pae- 
 dore et fame alium cruciatum sustulit, alium in carcere carni- 
 fex strangulavit. Sed quis unquam audivit, quis legit, regem 
 legitimum, hoereditarium regnum possidentem, Christianum, 
 reformatum, accusatum a suis subjectis, causam capitis dicere 
 coactum, condemnatum,, .securi percussum? Causa etiam com r 
 
356 LIFE or MILTON. 
 
 tion it is sometimes happy and even elo- 
 quent. It presents us with arguments gene- 
 rally subtle and specious; and with diction, 
 occasionally indeed poor and debased with 
 modern idioms, but on the whole perspicu- 
 
 missae in regia persona caedis aut summae sceleris detrahit aut 
 ad summam addit, quod minus aut magis sceleratnm existimari 
 queat quod actum est. Si per tumultum aliquis interemptus 
 est militarem, si per seditionem popularem, si per factionem 
 optimatum extinctus, non alia causa qnaeri solet quara quae'ocu- 
 lis patet, tumultus, factionis, seditioni.s. Furor iraque rebel- 
 lium mentes praecipites egit in tale facinus. Irati milites ob 
 gravem militiam, infensi populi ob tributorum onera, proceres vel 
 odio, vel metu, vel studio dominandi incitati n regem conspirant. 
 Causa furoris in his omnibus p'artes suas agit. Post factum eos 
 
 qui fecere plerumque pcenitentia capit. 
 
 <c Non rebellio concitati populi ea simplex fuit, subita se- 
 ditione et factione vel procefum vel militum ad regem suum 
 occidendum inflammata. Torserunt prius variis crucibus ac 
 morte gravioribus suppliers, quern tandem ignominioso et ulti- 
 mo conficerent. De carcere in carcerem cum traduxerunt, 
 custodiis saepe mutatis, saepe novatis, libertatis interdum spe 
 ostensa, interdum et restitutionis per pactionem inter partes 
 faciendam. Dum de hac tractatur, et cum jam rex omnia pro- 
 niisisset quee ab ipso postulabantur, repente totum negotium 
 disturbatur. E carccre rex educitur, in regiam adducitur^ coram 
 judicibus selectis sistitur, causam dicere tanquam reus cogitur, 
 lion respondens condemnatui% securi percutitur. Sed quo modo ? 
 Eo certe modo quo nullus unquam rex supplicium capitis passus 
 memoratur. Vt latro, ut sicarius, ut parricida, ut proditor, ut 
 tyrannus ante domum suam, id est regiam suam, populo suo spec- 
 tante, infami pegmati impositus, inter duos carnifices constitutus 
 et quidem larvalos, quasi ad rem faceret hoc in duobus his serva- 
 turn esse ut personati starent, cum tot alii carnifices ore non tecto, 
 palam locum supplicii armis circumdatum custodirentj quot nempe 
 pedites et equites armati circumstabnnt." 
 
LIFE OP MILTON. 357 
 
 ous and pure. It satisfies us, in short, that its 
 author was no common man; and it would 
 prove him, without the testimony of his 
 other works, not to have been the fortuitous 
 possessor of that high reputation which he 
 enjoyed. 
 
 But the circumstance, which will princi- 
 pally recommend this work of Salmasius's to 
 a numerous party in the present day, is the 
 vivid recollection, which it forcibly awakens, 
 of some of the political writings of the late 
 Mr. Burke. The same dark arsenal of lan- 
 guage seems to have supplied the artillery, 
 which in the seventeenth century was aimed 
 at the government of England, and in the 
 close of the eighteenth at that of France; and 
 many of those doctrines," 1 which disgust us 
 
 m " Dicet fanatica natio, ita in regem & populo transire (po- 
 testatem) ut ad populum possit redire, immo et debeat, quan- 
 docunque hoc velit, aut si ita expedire judicet bono ac saluti 
 reipublicae. Atqui salus reipublicae semper postulat, ut data % 
 populo principi potestas nunquam ad populum revertatur, qui 
 ita earn deponit, ut principem semel ilia donatum non privare 
 possit in posterum dato imperio. Quippe cum ad salutem po- 
 puli reperta sint omnia genera gubernationis quibus respublica 
 constituitur et administratur, boni public! maxime interest ut 
 potestas a populo regi semel concessa et donata, nunquam 
 revocetur. Nisi enim hoc esset, et si pro lege id observaretur, 
 ut quotiescunque populo placuisset, imperium regi, quern ele- 
 gisset, ablatum ad populum rediret, nulla pax unquam firma 
 in republica sperari posset, sed ad singula momenta quies ejus 
 
358 LIFE OF MILTON. 
 
 with their naked deformity in the pages of 
 the Leyden professor, have been withdrawn 
 from our detestation under an embroidered 
 and sparkling veil by the hand of the British 
 politician. When Salmasius calls upon the 
 monarchs, and indeed upon all the well insti- 
 tuted republics, or, in other words, the regu- 
 lar governments of Europe to extirpate the 
 fanatic and the parricide English, the pests 
 and the monsters of Britain, we must neces- 
 sarily be reminded of Mr. Burke's crusading 
 zeal against the revolutionists of France; and 
 be persuaded that he only blows the trumpet 
 bequeathed to him by the antagonist of Mil- 
 ton, and sullied with the venal breath which 
 was once purchased by Charles. Unques- 
 tionable resemblance is to be discovered in 
 " the Royal Defence " to those pieces of Mr. 
 Burke's which respect the French revolution; 
 and if the former were to be translated, (but 
 who would submit to so ungrateful a labour?) 
 the English reader would be less struck with 
 the novelty of the latter; and more disposed 
 to assent to what was asserted by the wise 
 man more than three thousand years ago, 
 that " there is no new thing under the sun/' 
 
 turbaretur, omnia seditionibus et factionibus arderent, fomitibus 
 aubinde in faces ad totius status conflagrationem suppeditandis.'" 
 Uet". Reg. p. 202. 
 
LIFE OF MILTON. 359 
 
 On the causes of this obvious likeness I will 
 not presume to offer an opinion. Similar 
 thoughts might be suggested by similar sub- 
 jects, and the same passions, however ex- 
 cited, might naturally rush into the same 
 channel of intemperate expression: or the 
 expatiating mind of Mr. Burke might range 
 even the moors of Salmasius to batten on, 
 their coarse produce; and, finding them re- 
 plenished with bitter springs, might be in- 
 duced to draw from them to feed the luxuri- 
 -ancy of his invective. 11 
 
 n For the amusement of the curious reader, I will transcribe 
 a few passages from Salmasius's work, to prove the resemblance 
 which I have asserted ; and at the same time to show that Mil- 
 ton's severity did not exceed the provocation. 
 
 P. 5. " Hac ratione quod in Anglia factum facinus cum hor~ 
 rore accepimus, quia exemplo caret, tanto minus ignoscendum, 
 magisque adeo execrandum, curandumque enixius ne hoc ipso 
 tempore penetret ad plures et ne pro exemplo sit perniciem 
 trahente venie-ns in aevum. Digni, itaque, omni odio et inse.c- 
 tatione qui fecerunt, dignissimique porro quos flamma, ferroque 
 persequantur non solum quoquot sunt in Europa reges et 
 principes jure regio imperantes, sed etiam omnes magistratus 
 omnesque adeo republicae bene constitutae et moratae. Ilaec 
 enim fanaticorum fuctio non sola regum solia appetere gestit, 
 sed omnes potestates quas ipsa non fecerit conatur subvertere, 
 cum nihil aliud nisi mutationem captet et cupiat, non solum 
 in republics sed in ecclesia cum perpetua novandi libidlne, qua 
 sibi imperandi omnibus, nuJlique parendi licentiam adstruat. 
 Non solum regnorum eversionem, sed etiam legum eversionem 
 sibi cordi esse satis ostendunt," &c. 
 
 P. 6. " Vocari illi se quidem libertatis publicae cnstodes, in. 
 
360 LIFE OF MILTON. 
 
 But whatever might be the intrinsic me* 
 
 actis publicis postulant. ^Eque bono jure latro qui viatorenr 
 spoliasset se crumenae ejuscustodem appellari vellet," &c. 
 
 P. 10. " Hoc * aficui Cornelio Syllae, hoc Julio Caesari licu- 
 isse, principibus suae setatis viris, generis et virtutis merito, 
 fortasse minus intoleralidum. At idem Manios aliqtios, terrae 
 filios, vix domi nobiles, vix suis notos licere sibi credidisse qui& 
 ferat?" 
 
 P. 11. " At istae sicariorum viles et impurae animse optima- 
 turn consessum aboleveruntj locum el nullum in parte procu- 
 randae reipublicae esse voluerunt, ad plebem in speciem totum 
 regendi jus transtulerunt, sed revera sibi vindicarunt, id est 
 paucis e faece plebis ortis reservarunt, immo vel uni nebuloni, 
 fanatico, homini obscuro, turbarum omnium quae per tot annos 
 Angliam dilacerarunt, autori, incentori, promotori." 
 
 P. 23. te Non odio regis, non metu, non criminibus ejus ad- 
 ducti de eo tollendo cogitarunt, sed quia reges ipsi esse volue- 
 runt. Nulli parere, et omnibus imperare jam pridem didice- 
 rant: haec eorum disciplinaj base secta. Multorum annorum 
 molitionibus, machinationibus, meditationibus ad hoc detes- 
 tandum et horrendum facinus patrandum sese compararunt. 
 Ne casu putemus in execrationem omnium incurrisse, hoc vo- 
 luerunt," &c. 
 
 P- 25. " Tetrae istae belluae et molossis suis ferociores." v 
 
 P. 35. " Saeculum certe nostrum hanc notam ex eo sibi in- 
 ustam nunquam eluet, quod homines tulerit, quibus crudelitate 
 et immanitate pares nulla retro ssecula tulerunt. Natio ipsa 
 Anglicana, qiwe talia monstra produxit, maculam hanc sibi ea 
 nomine imprirnendam nunquam deleverit." 
 
 P. 40. " Ea est harum pestium doctrina, ut etiam audeant 
 affirmare se solos sapere et recte sentire dum regum coro- 
 nas pedibus conculcant, sceptra confringunt, thronos destruunt, 
 paludamenta conscindunt sed etiam exitiale hoc dogma im- 
 
 * The overthrow of the established government: neither Sal. 
 masius nor Mr. Burke seems to object to this measure, provided 
 that it be accomplished by noble hands. 
 
LITE OF MILTON"; 36l 
 
 rit of this defence of Charles, it was elevated 
 
 bibet (posteritas,) nisi obviam prompte eatur. Nam vel prop- 
 ter hanc impiam doctrinam, non solum ex omnibus regnis, ubi- 
 cunque invenientur, exturbandi sunt, sed omnia etiam regna 
 conspirare debent, ut ex eo regno quod intoleranda tyrannide 
 oppressum nunc occupant ejiciantur." 
 
 P. 85. " Si credimus novis evangelistis, novitiisque sanctis, 
 doctrinae parricidalis et Anti-Christianae autoribus, rex minister 
 est populi et servus. Non bella sua, sed populi gerit. Populi 
 
 creatura est, ut vas fictile figuli. &c. &c. inde sequeretur 
 
 in democratia, quae populi principatum agnoscit, populum vice 
 versa servire debere. Sed cui serviet ? cerivisise coctoribus, 
 cerdonibus, serariis fabris, et aliis ejusmodi furfuraceis tyran- 
 nis," &c. 
 
 P. 97. " Quam adversis frontibus pugnat hsec veterum doc- 
 trina Christiana cum ista fanaticorum, vere Anti-christiana, quae 
 sancit populum esse figulum regis, regem autem vas esse a populo 
 fictum ut figulo suo ?" 
 
 P. 195. " Haec est fanaticorum Angliae de regibus et regendi 
 diversis generibus in republica sententia et doctrina quae omnia' 
 ad populum revocat ut ad fontem et originem totius potestatis 
 et autoritatis quae leges rogat et abrogat, quae pacem et bellum 
 sancit, quae fcedera firmat, quae religionem dirigit, ecclesiamque 
 cum republica regit. Sed quicquid illi perditi homines dicunt 
 ac docent de populari administratione,, cui omnia vindicant gu- 
 bernationis genera, ad populum decipiendum pertinent, cui fu- 
 cum hoc modo faciunt: nihil enim minus revera cogitant, quam 
 ut populum ipsum populis imperio regendis destinent, nihil 
 etiam minus praestant. Forma regiminis quam introduxere plane 
 nova est et priscis inaudita," &c. 
 
 P. 323. " Nunc tanta rerum nominnmque permutatio viget 
 apud iilos sectaries, ut servus pro domino exeat,, dominus pro 
 servo: tyranni multi pro rege uno legitimo imperent. IIOAy- 
 
 OLgyjaL cum dva^ix sit mixta. Respublica consistat sineliber- 
 
 tate; religio sine fide; enthusiasmus sine veritatej ecclesia sine 
 dlsciplina. Omnia in ea inversa ac perversa: omnia monstruosa, 
 capite in pedes dejecto^ pedibus in caput erectis. Infirma sum- 
 
362 LITE OF MILTON. 
 
 by the name of Salmasius too highly to the 
 notice of Europe to be overlooked by the 
 government of England. The Council im- 
 mediately perceived the necessity of reply- 
 ing to it; and as immediately discovered the 
 powers adequate to the occasion in their se- 
 cretary, Milton. He was present, as he tells 
 us, when the question was agitated, and the 
 unanimous voice of the meeting committed 
 to him the charge of repelling the acrimo- 
 nious and mercenary attack. His compli- 
 ance with the honourable requisition was 
 instant; and inattentive to the suggestions 
 of his -friends, who were fearful of his repu- 
 tation, committed against so renowned an 
 adversary; undeterred by the remonstrance 
 of his physicians, \vho predicted that the loss 
 of his sight would be the infallible result of 
 his labour; and unrestrained by the dissua- 
 sion of his bad health, which allo\ved him to 
 compose only at intervals and with hourly 
 interruptions, he persevered in the duty 
 
 mis, dextra laevis, recta pravis, religiosa profanis mutata. Merurn. 
 denique omnis generis confusionutn chaos. Hie status est regni 
 Anglican! sub dira et immani Independentium tyrannide." 
 
 P. 365. " Pactio, quam fingunt inter regem et subditos in- 
 tercedere, non minus futilis est. Certe nulla est in imperils vi 
 armorum partis, qualia sunt hodie ferme omnia." 
 
 P. 269. " Sed belluse et feri molossi hominum facis et ha- 
 
 VitU." &TC. 
 
LIFE OF MILTONi 36'3 
 
 which he had undertaken ; and, with princi- 
 ple strong within his heart and the attrac- 
 tion of glory bright before his view, he pro- 
 duced early in the year 1651 that noble 
 acquittal of his engagement to the Coun- 
 cil, " The Defence of the People of Eng- 
 land." 
 
 To speak of this composition in terms 
 of too high praise would be difficult for its 
 greatest admirer. If, happily, it had been 
 a little less embittered with personal invec- 
 tive, and had withdrawn the two immediate 
 combatants to a greater distance from our 
 sight; if it had excluded every light and 
 sportive sally from its pages, it would have 
 approached very nearly to perfection, and 
 would have formed one of the most able and 
 satisfactory, the most eloquent and splendid 
 defences of truth and liberty against sophis- 
 try and despotism, which has ever been ex- 
 hibited to the world. Its diction, pure spi- 
 rited and harmonious, is the adequate organ 
 of strong argument, manly sentiment, com- 
 prehensive erudition, excursive fancy, and 
 profound wisdom. By the laws of God, 
 either written in our hearts or made the sub- 
 jects of immediate revelation; by the testi- 
 
 Defensio pro Populo Anglicano contra CJaudii.Salmasii DC- 
 iensionem Regiam. 
 
36*4 LITE OF MILTON. 
 
 mony of all history, sacred and profane, the 
 " Defence of the People of England" ascer- 
 tains that political power properly emanates 
 from the people, for whose good it must be 
 exercised, and for whose good it may right- 
 fully be resumed. On the narrowed ques- 
 tion and with reference to the point more 
 immediately at issue, the " Defence" strenu- 
 ously asserts the ancient genealogy of Eng- 
 lish freedom and traces it from its British 
 origin, through its Saxon and Norman line- 
 age, to the times in which Charles suffered 
 and the commonwealth of England was esta- 
 blished. During this whole period the " De- 
 fence" proves that the existence of the ulti- 
 mate sovereignty of the people was ascer- 
 tained either by the electing or the deposing 
 of the monarch, or by its acknowledgment in 
 the compacts of the more potent possessors 
 of the throne. From the Saxon times is de- 
 monstrated the existence of a supreme legis- 
 lative assembly including the representa- 
 tives of the commons, by which the conduct 
 of the executive power was controlled and to 
 which the chief magistrate was at all times 
 responsible. 
 
 The author is unquestionably too severe 
 in his treatment of Charles, and we are fa- 
 tigued with the perpetual recurrence of his 
 
LIFE OF MILTON. 365 
 
 invective against his immediate antagonist: 
 but into the first of these errors he was be- 
 trayed by the exaggerated praise with which 
 the departed Monarch was now lifted into 
 popular favour; and for the second he may 
 find some excuse in the abusive and inso- 
 lent language, hurled by a presumptuous fo- 
 reigner against the government and the peo- 
 ple of England. In this instance however 
 of management, or in this indulgence of in- 
 temperance, Milton has shewn himself to bo 
 injudicious; and, like other controversialists 
 who have accommodated their works to the 
 passions and the prejudices of the day, he 
 has abandoned the more permanent for the 
 more instant and impressive effect. In a con- 
 test, like this in question, it may be of import- 
 ance, as Bayle acutely observes, to get the 
 laughers on our side; and the aggravated 
 censures, with the pointed personalities which 
 now form the principal blemishes of the 
 " Defence of the People of England/' con- 
 stituted at the time of its publication one of 
 the chief causes of its power and popularity. 
 No mean of teasing the adversary is omitted 
 in this composition : his venality and ac- 
 commodating pliancy of opinion are even 
 made the subjects of a sportive sally in iam- 
 bics. 
 
366 LIFE OF MILTON. 
 
 " Quis expedivit Salmasio snam hundredam; 
 " Picamque docuit nostra verba conarir" 
 " Magister artis venter j" et Jacobaei 
 
 Centum, exulantis viscera P marsupii regis. 
 e< Quod si dolosi spes refulserit nummi," 
 
 Ipse Antichrist! qui modo primatum Papae 
 
 Minatus uno est dissipare sufflatu 
 " Cantabit" ultro Cardinalitiurn " melos." ( i 
 
 Who to our English tuned Salmasius' throat? 
 Who taught the pye to speak our words by rote ? 
 A hundred golden Jameses did the feat: 
 He learn'd to prattle, for he wish'd to eat. 
 Let the false glare of gold allure his hope; 
 And he, whose stormy voice late shook the Pope, 
 And threatened Antichrist with speedy death, 
 Will sooth the conclave with his tuneful breath. 
 
 But the reader may expect a graver spe- 
 cimen of this celebrated work; and I will 
 transcribe for him the forcible and eloquent 
 address with which it concludes. 
 
 " Hactenus, quod initio institueram ut 
 meorum civium facta egregia contra insa- 
 mam et lividissimam furentis sophistae rabi- 
 em et clomi et foris defenderem, jusque po- 
 puli commune ab injusto regum dominatu 
 assererem, non id quidem regum odio sed 
 tyrannorum, Deo bene juvante videor jam 
 mihi absolvisse: neque ullum sine response 
 
 P The classical reader need not be informed that these lines 
 are a parody on the prologue of Persius to his satires. 
 IP. W. v. 1(50. 
 
LIFE OF MILTON. 
 
 vel argumentum, vel exemplum, vel testimo- 
 nium ab adversario allatum sciens praeter- 
 misi, quod quidem firmitatis in se quicquam, 
 aut probalionis vim ullam habere videretur; 
 in alteram fortasse partein culpae propior, 
 quod saepitisculfc ineptiis quoque ejus et ar- 
 gutiis tritissirnis, quasi arguments, respon- 
 dendo, id iis tribuisse videar quo dignae non 
 erant. Unum restat, et forlasse maximum, 
 ut YOS quoque, 6 cives, adversarium hunc 
 vestrum ipsi refutetis: quod nulla alia ra- 
 tione video posse fieri, nisi omnium male- 
 dicta vestris optimk factis exuperare perpe- 
 tuo contendatis. Vota vestra et preces ar- 
 dentissimas Deus, cum servitutis haud uno 
 genere oppress! ad eurn confugislis, benignfe 
 exaudiit. Quae duo in vita hominum mala 
 sane maxima sunt et virtuti damnosissima, 
 tyrannis et superstitio, iis vos gentium pri- 
 mos gloriose liberavit; earn anirni magni- 
 tudinem vobis injecit ut devictum armis ves- 
 tris et dedititium regein judicio inclyto judi- 
 care, et condemnatum punire, prim! morla- 
 lium non dubitarelis. Post hoc facinus tarn 
 illustre, nihil humile aut augustum, nihil non 
 magnum atque excelsum et cogitare et facere 
 debebitis. Quam laudem ut assequamini, 
 hac sola incedendum est via, si ut hostes bello 
 domuistis, ita ambitionem, avaritiam, opes, 
 
368 LIFE OF MILTON. 
 
 et secundarum rerum corruptelas, quae subi- 
 gunt cseteras gentes hominurn, ostenderitis 
 posse vos etiam inermes media in pace om- 
 nium mortalium fortissime debellare; si, quam 
 in repellenda servitute forlitudinem praesti- 
 tistis, earn in libeitate conservanda justitiam, 
 temperantiam, moderationem praestiteritis. 
 His solis argumentis et testimoniis evincere 
 potestis, non esse vos illos, quos hie probris 
 insequitur, " Perduelles, latrones, sicarios, 
 parricidas, fanaticos :" non vos arnbitionis 
 aut alieni invadendi studio, non seditione, 
 aut pravis ullis cupiditatibus, non amentia 
 aut furore percitos regem trucidasse, seel 
 amore libertatis, religionis, justitiae, hones- 
 tatis, patriae denique charitale accensos ty- 
 rannum puniisse. Sin autem, (quod, bone 
 Deus, ne unquam siveris,) aliter in animum 
 induxeritis, si in bello fortes, in pace turpes 
 eritis, qui manifestum sensistis numen vobis 
 tarn propitium, hostibus tarn grave, neque 
 exemplo tarn insigni et mernorando ante 
 oculos posito, Deum vereri et justitiam co- 
 lere didiceritis; quod ad me attinet, con- 
 cedam sank et fatebor, neque enim potero 
 negare ea ornnia, quae nunc maledici et 
 mendaces de vobis pessime aut loquuntur 
 aut sentiunt, vera esse: vosque multo ira- 
 tiorem brevi tempore experturi estis Deunj, 
 
LIFE OF MILTON 36'9 
 
 qu&m aut infensum inimici vestri, aut vos 
 benign um et faventem et paternum, prae 
 caeteris omnibus terrarum orbis gentibus ho- 
 diernis, experti estis."j q 
 
 " So far, with God's assistance, have I ac- 
 complished my original purpose of defend- 
 ing, both at home and abroad, the proud 
 achievements of my countrymen against the 
 insane and malignant fury of a frantic so- 
 phist; and of vindicating, (as the enemy, 
 not of kings but of tyrants,) the general rights 
 of the subject from the unjust despotism of 
 the prince. Nor have I consciously left un- 
 answered a single argument, instance, or evi- 
 dence adduced by my antagonist, which ap- 
 peared to possess the smallest portion either 
 of strength or conclusiveness, having rather 
 perhaps inclined to the opposite fault of re- 
 plying too frequently even to his irrelevant 
 and trivial sophistries; and of treating them, 
 as arguments, with a degree of attention of 
 which they were undeserving. One thing 
 alone, but perhaps the most important, re- 
 mains, that you also, iny countrymen, 
 should yourselves unite with me in the con- 
 futation of your enemy: and this, in my opi- 
 nion, can no otherwise be effected than by a 
 
 * P. VV, v. 1Q4. 
 2 B 
 
370 LIFE OF MILTON. 
 
 perpetual effort on your part to rise above 
 his calumnies and to crush them with your 
 virtues. To your ardent vows and supplica- 
 tions the Almighty indulgently listened when, 
 under the yoke of your double servitude, 
 you sued to him for deliverance. You are 
 the first among the nations whom he has glo- 
 riously rescued from the oppression of ty- 
 ranny and superstition, those two mighty evils 
 which are the most hostile to the perfection 
 of man : to you, the first of the human race, 
 did he impart the magnanimity to submit to 
 the solemnity of a judicial trial, and, when 
 legally found guilty, to punish with a just 
 death your vanquished and captive king. 
 After a deed so illustrious, nothing low or nar- 
 row, nothing but what is great and exalted 
 should enter into your thoughts and actions. 
 To this lofty superiority of character you 
 can rise only by showing that, as you have 
 quelled your enemies in war so, with forti- 
 tude equally unexampled, without arms and 
 in profound peace, you can subdue ambition 
 and avarice, the power of wealth and the 
 corruption of prosperity which triumph over 
 the rest of your species; and by exhibiting 
 in the preservation of your freedom a degree 
 of justice, temperance, and moderation propor- 
 tioned to the valour which you have evinced 
 
LIFE OF MILTOtf. S71 
 
 in its attainment. By these arguments and 
 evidences alone can you satisfactorily prove 
 that you are not, (as your calumniator af- 
 firms,) Rebels," " Robbers," " Ruffians/' 
 " Parricides/' and " Fanatics;" and that you 
 have not under the impulse of ambition or 
 of a wish to plunder, not incited by sedi- 
 tion or by any depraved passions, not in a 
 paroxysm of folly or of phrenzy murdered a 
 king; but that, elevated and kindled with the 
 love of liberty, of religion, of equity, of ho- 
 nour, and of your country, you have inflicted 
 punishment upon a tyrant. If however, 
 (which God avert!) your projects and pur- 
 poses be different; if, notwithstanding your 
 signal experience of a Deity so propitious to 
 yourselves and so destructive to your foes, 
 after all your bravery in war you are resolved 
 to be corrupt in peace, and, unaffected by 
 the memorable and awful example before 
 your eyes, to disdain " to learn to do justice, 
 and to walk humbly with your God" for 
 my part, I must indeed be constrained re- 
 luctantly to acknowledge the truth of all 
 those infamous charges against you which 
 are now uttered or conceived by the slan- 
 derers of your fame, and you will but too 
 quickly feel the wrath of the Almighty in a 
 much more afflicting degree than it has ever 
 
372 LIFE OF MILTON. 
 
 visited your enemies; or than you yourselves 
 have ever experienced, beyond the other na- 
 tions of modern times, his kind, indulgent, 
 and paternal love/'' r 
 
 r I must in this place, assign a note to the vindication of 
 Milton from an aspersion unwarily thrown on him by a most 
 respectable prelate j and unhappily inserted into the biogra- 
 phical compilation which is prefixed to the last edition of his 
 poetical works. " It must not be omitted/' says Mr. Todd,* 
 " that Salmasius, in his Defensio Regia, had pressed hard 
 upon his adversary in a particular point 5 and that Milton, to 
 maintain the point, was tempted to put on the fragile armour 
 of untruth." A harsh imputation this on the warmest votary 
 of principle and truth, who ever wielded the pen of contro- 
 versy! but let us proceed. <c A learned Prelate, in modern 
 times, has detected this diminished brightness of Milton. 
 f When Salmasius upbraided Cromwell's faction with the te- 
 nets of the Brownists, the chosen advocate of that execrable 
 faction," (Milton) " replied that, if they were Brownists, Lu- 
 ther, Calvin, Bucer, Zui'nglius, and all the most celebrated theo- 
 logians of the orthodox must be included in the same reproach. 
 A grosser falsehood, as far as Luther, Calvin, and many others 
 are concerned, never fell from the unprincipled pen of a party- 
 writer. However sedition might be a part of the puritanic 
 creed, the general faith of the reformers rejects the infamous al- 
 liance." For this remark, Mr. Todd refers us to the appendix 
 to Bishop Watson's sermon preached before the House of Lords, 
 on Jan. 30, 179^. For this liberal and worthy prelate I feel 
 very unfeigned respectj but I must protest against the rashness, 
 for I cannot think it an intention to misrepresent, which has in- 
 cited him to this violent paragraph. To refute the incautious 
 charge nothing more can be necessary than the production of 
 the passage in Milton's work to which the reference is made. 
 It concludes the fifth chapter of the Defensio pro Populo Angli- 
 
 * Todd'i Life of Milton, 
 
LIFE OP MILTON". 
 
 This great display of intellectual power 
 
 ano,"* and it stands independently of any thing which precedes 
 it. " Quereris enim postremis hisce seculis discipline vigorem 
 laxatum, regulam corruptam," quod uni scilicet tyranno, cunctis 
 legibus soluto, disciplinam omnem laxare, mores omnium cor- 
 rumpere impune non liceat. Hanc doctrinam " Brunistas inter 
 reformatos" introduxisse ais. Ita Lutherus, Calvinus, Zuin- 
 glius, Bucerus, et orthodoxorum quotquot celeberrimi theologi 
 fuere, tuo judicio Brunistae sunt. Quo aequiore animo tua 
 maledicta perferunt Angli, cum in ecclesise doctores praestan- 
 tissimos, totamque adeo ecclesiam reformatam, iisdem prope 
 contumeliis debacchari te audiunt." " You complain," ad- 
 dressing himself to Salmasius, says Milton, " that in this last age 
 the vigour of discipline is impaired and its right rule corrupted, 
 because truly it is not in the power of one despot, released him- 
 self from the controll of all law, to relax with impunity the ge- 
 neral discipline and to corrupt the morals of all. This doctrine, 
 as you say, was first introduced among the reformed by the 
 Brownists: so that, by your decision, Luther, Calvin, Zui'nglius, 
 Bucer, and all the most celebrated of the orthodox divines are 
 included among the Brownists. The English therefore sup- 
 port your calumnies with the greater equanimity, when they 
 hear you thus furious in your invectives against the most admir- 
 able doctors, and consequently against the body itself of the re- 
 formed church." Jf we admit the premises of Milton, can we 
 refuse our assent to his conclusion? If to contend for liberty 
 against the tyranny of a single person be the distinction of a 
 Brown ist, the first reformers were, beyond all question, Brown- 
 ists, for one of the principal objects of their liberal and en- 
 lightened contention was to break the despotism of the court of 
 Rome. Milton asserts nothing but the truth ; and he is justi- 
 fied in bringing it forward by that part of his adversary's work 
 to which he replies. The first reformers were not only stre- 
 nuous in their opposition to the papal despotism, but were on 
 all occasions warm advocates and supporters of the civil liber.tiei 
 of man. 
 
 * P. W. v. 136. 
 
J.IFE OF MILTON. 
 
 was received with the plaudit of the world; 
 and, as the author's name was not in any wide 
 celebrity out of his own country, the general 
 surprise was nearly equal to the general ad- 
 miration. Congratulations and acknowledg- 
 ments of respect poured in upon him from 
 every quarter, and the scholars of Europe, 
 actuated by a similar spirit with the spec- 
 tators of the old Olympic games, threw gar- 
 lands on the conqueror of Salmasius. On the 
 publication of the " Defence of the People 
 of England," all the embassadors in London, 
 of whom perhaps the greater number were 
 from crowned heads, discovered their sense 
 of its merit by complimenting or visiting its 
 author; and he was gratified by letters, re- 
 plete with praise and with professions of 
 esteem, from foreigners eminent for their ta- 
 lents and erudition. 
 
 Among these he seems to have been 
 particularly pleased with the attentions of 
 Leonard Philaras, a learned Athenian who 
 had attained to high rank in Italy and was 
 now employed by the Duke of Parma on 
 an embassy to the court of Paris. Struck 
 with the ability and spirit of Milton's com- 
 position, this illustrious and liberal Greek 
 sent a present of his portrait with a letter 
 of panegyric to the defender of the Eng- 
 
LIFE OF MILTON. 
 
 lish commonwealth. On a visit, which Phi- 
 laras soon afterwards made to England, 
 his first object, (and indeed it seems to 
 have been the leading object of his visit to 
 our island,) was to wait upon Milton, then 
 reduced to a state of total blindness; and 
 mutual friendship was the consequence of 
 their personal intimacy. When Philaras re- 
 turned to Paris, he was induced by the cele- 
 brity of Thevenot s the physician, particularly 
 renowned at that time for his acquaintance 
 with the diseases of the eye, to communicate 
 a hope to Milton of the recovery of his sight. 
 The two letters, in which our author ac- 
 knowledges the first kindness and the subse- 
 quent services of his Athenian friend, are too 
 worthy of the reader's notice not to be sub- 
 mitted to it. 
 
 Clarissimo Viro Leonardo Philara Atheniensij 
 Duds Parmensis ad Regem Gallic Legato. 
 
 Benevolentiam erga me tuam, ornatis* 
 sime Leonarde Philara, nee non etiam prae- 
 
 s If we were desirous of paying Thevenot a high compliment, 
 we should call him the WARE of the seventeenth century and 
 of France. If the French physician actually possessed the skill 
 and the benevolence of our admirable oculist, he must have 
 been the ornament and the blessing of his age. 
 
3?6 LIFE OF MILTON. 
 
 clarum de nostra pro P. AJ Defensione ju- 
 dicium, ex literis tuis ad dominum Auge- 
 rium, virum apud nos in obeundis ab Me 
 republica legationibus fide eximia illustrem, 
 partim e& de re scriptis cognovi: missam 
 deinde salutem cum effigie atque elogio 
 tuis sane virtutibus dignissirno literas de- 
 nique abs te Immanissimas per eundem ac- 
 cepi. Atque ego quidem curn nee Germa- 
 norum ingenia, ne Cimbrorum quidem, aut 
 Suecorum aspernari soleo, turn eerie tuum, 
 qui et Athenis Atticis natus, et, literarum 
 studiis apud Italos foeliciter peractis, magno 
 rerum usu honores amplissimos es eonse- 
 cutus, judicium de me non possum quin plu- 
 rimi faciam. Cum enim Alexander ille mag- 
 nus in terris ultimis belluiii gerens, t^nios se 
 militiee labores pertulisse testatus sit, rr^ -pap* 
 AQyvaiuv euSofciag evtita; quidni ego mihi gra- 
 tuler, meque ornari quam maxime putem, 
 ejus viri laudibus, in quo jam uno priscorum 
 Atheniensium artes atque virtutes illae cele- 
 bratissimae renasci tarn longo intervallo et 
 reflorescere videntur. Qua ex urbe cum tot 
 viri disertissimi prodierint, eorum potissi- 
 mum scriptis ab adolescentia pervolvendis 
 didicisse me libens faleor quicquid ego in 
 literis profeci. Quod si mihi tanta vis di- 
 cendi accepta ab illis et quasi transfusa in- 
 
LIFE OF MILTON. 377 
 
 esset, ut exercitus nostros et classes ad libe- 
 randarn ab Ottomannico tyranno Greciam, 
 eloquentiae patriam, excitare possem, ad quod 
 facinus egregium nostras opes pen implo- 
 rare videris, facerem profecto id quo nihil 
 mihi antiquius aut in votis prius esset. Quid 
 enim vel fortissimi olim viri, eloquentissimi 
 gloriosius aut se dignius esse duxerunt, quam 
 vel suadendo vel fortiter faciendo Ixeu&sp^ KU\ 
 avrovoftvi; 7roiei<rdai Tx$"E\Xyvus? Verum et aliud 
 quiddam praeterea tentandum est, med qui- 
 dem sententi^ longe maximum, ut quis anti- 
 quam in animis Graecorum virtutem, Indus- 
 triam, laborum tolerantiam, antiqua ilia stu- 
 dia dicendo suscitare atque accendere possit. 
 Hoc si quis effecerit, quod a nemine potius 
 quarn abs te, pro tuA, ilia insigni erga pa- 
 triam pietate, cum summA prudentia reique 
 militaris peritia, summo denique rccupe- 
 randae libertatis pristinae studio conjuncta, 
 expectare debemus; neque ipsos sibi Graecps 
 neque ullam gentem Graecis defuturam esse 
 confido. Vale. 
 
 Londinij June 1652. 
 
378 LIFE OF MILTON. 
 
 Leonardo PhilarcK Atheniensi. 
 
 Cum sim a pueritia totius Graeci nominis, 
 tuarumque in prirnis Athenarum cultor, si 
 quis alius, turn una hoc semper mihi per- 
 suasissimum habebam, fore ut ilia urbs prae- 
 claram aliquando redditura vicem esset be- 
 nevolentiae erga se meae. Neque defuit sane 
 tuae patriae nobilissimae antiquus ille genius 
 augurio meo; deditque te nobis et germa- 
 num Atlicum et nostri amantissimum : qui 
 me, scriptis duntuxat notum, et locis ipse 
 disjuncttis, Immanissime per literas compel- 
 laveris, et Londinum postea inopinatus ad- 
 veniens, visensque non videntem^ etiam in 
 ea calamitate, propter quam conspectior ne- 
 mini despectior multis fortasse sim 5 eadem 
 benevolentia prosequaris. Cum itaque auc- 
 tor mihi sis, ut visus recAiperandi spem om- 
 nein ne abjiciam, habere te amicum ac ne- 
 cessarium tuum Parisiis Tevenotum medicum, 
 in curandis preesertirn oculis pra3stantissi- 
 mum, quern sis de meis luminibus consul- 
 turus, si modo acceperis a me unde is causas 
 morbi et symptomata possit intelligere ; fa- 
 ciam equidem quod hortaris, ne oblatam 
 undecunque divinitus fortassis opem repu- 
 diare videar. Decennium, opinor, plus mi- 
 
LIFE OF MILTON. 3/9 
 
 nus est, ex quo debilitari atque hebescere 
 visum sensi, eodemque tempore lienem visce- 
 raque omnia gravari flalibusque vexari: et 
 mane quidem, siquid pro more legere coe- 
 pissem, oculi statim penitus dolere lectio- 
 nemque retugere, post mediocrein deinde 
 corporis exercitationem recreari ; quam as- 
 pexissem lucernam, iris qu$edajn visa est 
 redimere: hand ita multo post sinistra in 
 parte oculi sinistri (is enim oculus aliquot 
 annis prius altera nubilavit) caligo oborla, 
 quae ad latus illud sita erant, omnia cripiebat. 
 Anteriora quoquc, si dexterum forte oculuin 
 clausissem, minora visa sunt. Deficiente per 
 hoc ferfe triennium sensim atque paulatim 
 altero quoque lumine, aliquot ante mensibus 
 quam visus omnis aboleretur, quae immolus 
 ipse cernerem visa sunt omnia mine dex- 
 trorsurn, nunc sinistrorsum natare ; frontem 
 totam atque tempora invetcrali quidem va- 
 pores videutur insedisse ; qui somnolenta 
 qu&dam gravitate oculos, a cibo pra^sertim 
 usque ad vesperam, plerunque urgent atque 
 deprimunt; ut mihi baud raro vcniat in men- 
 tern Salmydessii vatis Phinei in Argonaiiiicis, 
 
 yoiiav $s Ttsp'.t $ o'/cijcre 
 
380 LIFE OF MILTON. 
 
 Sed neque illud omiserim, dum adhuc visus 
 aliquantum supererat, ut primum in lecto 
 decubuissem meque in alterutrum latus re- 
 clinassem,consuevisse copiosum lumen clausis 
 oculis emicare; deinde, imminuto indies visu, 
 colores perinde obscuriores cum impetu et 
 fragore quodam intimo exilire; nunc autem, 
 quasi extincto lucido, merus nigror, aut cine- 
 raceo distinctus et quasi intextus solet se 
 affundere: caligo tamen, quae perpetuo ob- 
 vcrsatur tam noctu quam interdiu, albenti 
 semper quam nigricanti propior videtur; et 
 volvente se oculo aliquantillum lucis quasi 
 per rimulam admittit. Ex quo tametsi me- 
 dico tantimdem quoque spei possit elucere, 
 tamen ut in re plane insanabili ita me paro 
 atque compono; illudque saepe cogito, cum 
 destinati cuique dies tenebrarum, quod mo- 
 net sapiens, multi sint, meas adhuc tenebras, 
 singulari Numinis benignitate, inter otium et 
 stuclia, vocesque amicorum et salutationes, 
 illis lethalibus multo esse mitiores. Quod 
 si, ut scriptum est, non solo pane vivet homo 
 sed omni verbo prodeunte per os Dei, quid 
 est, cur quis in hoc itidem non acquiescat, 
 non solis so oculis, sed Dei ductu an provi- 
 dentia satis oculatum esse. Sane dummodo 
 ipse mihi prospicit, ipse mihi providet quod 
 facit, meque per omnem vitam quasi manu 
 
LIFE OF MILTON. 381 
 
 ducit atque deducit, ne ego meos oculos, 
 quandoquidem ipsi sic visum est, libens fe- 
 riari jussero. Teque, mi Philara, quocunque 
 res ceciderit, non minus forti et confirmato 
 animo, quam si Lynceus essem, valere jubco. 
 
 Westmonast. Septemb. 23, 4054. 
 
 To the most illustrious Leonard Philaras, Em- 
 bassador from the Duke of Parma to the 
 Court of France. 
 
 " Your kind feelings toward me, most 
 accomplished Philaras, as well as your flat- 
 tering opinion of my " Defence of the Eng- 
 lish People/' I first learned from your letter 
 written partly upon that subject to Mr. 
 Auger, a man eminent among us for his fide- 
 lity in the discharge of various embassies: 
 through his hands I subsequently received 
 your compliments with your picture, and a 
 panegyric most worthy of your virtues; and 
 lastly a very polite letter. Accustomed as I 
 am not to think slightly of German, or even 
 of Danish and Swedish genius, it is impos- 
 sible that I should not most highly value ap- 
 probation from you, who were born in attic 
 Athens, and, after successfully completing 
 your studies in Italy, have since by your ex- 
 tensive experience attained the most distill- 
 
3821 LIFE OF MILTON. 
 
 guished honours. For as Alexander the Great, 
 when warring at the extremity of the world, 
 affirmed that he encountered all his toils to 
 win the esteem of the Athenians, why may not 
 I felicitate myself and account it my greatest 
 ornament to be commended by him, in whom 
 alone the celebrated arts and virtues of old 
 Athens, after their long extinction, seem 
 again to live and to flourish of Athens the 
 mother of so many eloquent men, to the care- 
 ful study of whose writings, from my early 
 youth, I willingly acknowledge myself to be 
 chiefly indebted for whatever proficiency I 
 have made in letters. If, then, I had acquired 
 from them, .as it were by transfusion, such 
 energies of speech as could rouse our fleets 
 and armies to rescue Greece, the native soil 
 of eloquence, from the Turkish yoke, a glo- 
 rious achievement for which you seem al- 
 most to implore my exertions, I would in- 
 stantly accomplish it as the first and dearest 
 object of my wishes. For what were the men of 
 old, most illustrious for eloquence or for va- 
 lour, deemed greater and more worthy of them- 
 selves, than to restore by their power, either 
 of persuasion or of action, freedom and inde- 
 pendence to Greece? But another, and in my 
 judgment the most important object remains 
 to be attempted namely, to rouse and re- 
 
LIFE OF MILTON. 383 
 
 kindle with oratory in the minds of the 
 Greeks their ancient courage, and industry, 
 and patience of hardships, and other manly 
 virtues. When this is effected, (and from 
 whom, if not from you, in whom the patriot, 
 the sage, the soldier, and the lover of liberty 
 are all in their highest degree united, may 
 we expect its accomplishment?) neither will 
 any other nation, I trust, be wanting to the 
 Greeks, nor the Greeks to themselves. Fare- 
 well!" 
 
 London, June 1652. 
 
 To Leonard Philaras, of Athens. 
 
 " Devoted from my earliest youth to 
 every thing connected with Greece and with 
 your own Athens, my Philaras! in particu- 
 lar, I have always steel lastly believed that 
 the time would come when that; city would 
 bestow upon me some signal proof of her 
 gratitude in return. By giving to me in 
 you a genuine son of Attica and an affec- 
 tionate friend, the ancient genius of your 
 illustrious land has fulfilled my most san- 
 guine expectations. Known to you only by 
 my writings, and widely separated in our 
 abodes, I was first honoured with your kind 
 correspondence; and when afterwards an 
 
384 LIFE OF MILTOI*. 
 
 unexpected occasion brought you to Lon- 
 don, with the same kindness you came to see 
 me, who could see nobody; one labouring 
 under an affliction which can entitle him to 
 little observation and may, perhaps, expose 
 him to much disregard. As however you 
 entreat me not to abandon all hope of reco- 
 vering my sight, and state that you have a 
 medical friend at Paris, (M. Thevenot) par- 
 ticularly eminent as an oculist, whom you 
 could consult upon the subject if I would 
 transmit to you the causes and the symp- 
 toms of my disease; that I may not seem to 
 neglect any means, perhaps of divine sug- 
 gestion, for my relief, I will hasten to comply 
 with your request. 
 
 It is now about ten years, I think, since 
 I first perceived my sight beginning to grow 
 weak and dim, and, at the same time, my 
 spleen and other viscera heavy and flatulent. 
 When I sate down to read as usual in th 
 morning, my eyes gave me considerable pain, 
 and refused their office till fortified by mode- 
 rate exercise of body. If I looked at a candle 
 it appeared surrounded with an iris. In a 
 little time, a darkness, covering the left side 
 of the left eye, which was partially clouded 
 some years before the other, intercepted the 
 view of all things in that direction. Object* 
 
LIFE OF MILTON. 385 
 
 also in front seemed to dwindle in size when- 
 ever I closed my right eye. This eye too for 
 three years gradually failing, a few months 
 previous to my total blindness, while I was 
 perfectly stationary, every thing seemed to 
 swim backward aad forward : and now thick 
 vapours appear to settle on my forehead and 
 temples, which weigh down my lids with an 
 oppressive sense of drowsiness, especially in 
 the interval between dinner and the evening; 
 so as frequently to remind me of Phineus the 
 Salmydessian, in the Argonautics. 
 
 In darkness swam his brain, and, where he stood, 
 The stedfa&t e,arth seem'd rolling as a flood. 
 Nerveless his tongue^ and, eyery power oppress'd, 
 He sank, and languish'd into torpid rest. 
 
 I ought not to omit mentioning that, before 
 I wholly lost my sight, as soon as I lay down 
 in bed and turned upon either side, brilliant 
 flashes of light used to issue from my closed 
 eyes; and afterwards, upon the gradual failure 
 of rny powers of vision, colours, proportion- 
 ably dim and faint, seemed to rush out with 
 a degree of vehemence and a kind of inward 
 noise. These have now faded into uniform 
 blackness such as ensues on the extinction of 
 a candle; or blackness varied only and in- 
 termingled with a dunnish grey. The con- 
 stant darkness however in which I live day 
 
 2 C 
 
386 LIFE Ol' MILTON. 
 
 and night, inclines more to a whitish than a 
 blackish tinge; and the eye in turning itself 
 round admits, as through a narrow chink, a 
 very small portion of light. But this, though 
 it may perhaps oiler a similar glimpse of 
 hope to the physician, does not prevent me 
 from making up my mind to my case, as one 
 evidently beyond the reach of cure: and I 
 often reflect that, as many days of darkness, 
 according to the wise u man, are allotted to 
 us all, mine, which, by the singular favour of 
 the Deity, are divided between leisure and 
 study and are recreated by the conversation 
 and intercourse of my friends, are far more 
 agreeable than those deadly shades of which 
 Solomon is speaking. But, if, as it is written, 
 " Man shall not live by bread alone, but by 
 every word that proceedeth out of the mouth 
 of God," x why should not each of us likewise 
 acquiesce in the reflexion, that he derives the 
 benefits of sight not from his eyes alone, but 
 from the guidance and providence of the 
 same supreme being? Whilst HE looks out, 
 and provides for me as he does, and leads 
 me about as it were with his hand through 
 the paths of life, I willingly surrender my own 
 faculty of vision in conformity to his good 
 pleasure: and, with a heart as strong and as 
 
 " Eccles. xi. 8. * Matt. iv. 4. 
 
LIFE X)F MILTON. 387 
 
 stedfast, as if I were a Lynceus> I bid you, 
 my Philaras, farewel ! 
 
 Westminster, Sept. 28, 1054. 
 
 Amidst the thunder of applause, with which 
 the " Defence of the People of England" 
 was gratulated, it cannot be supposed that 
 Milton's immediate employers, the Council 
 of State, would suffer their approbation to 
 be silent. The donation however of a thou- 
 sand pounds, with which they are said by 
 Toland to have testified their sense of the 
 service, is exposed to some doubt by the 
 following passage in the author's " Second 
 Defence/' " Tuque scito illas" " opimitates" 
 atque " opes," quas mihi exprobras, non at- 
 tigisse, neque co nomine, quo maxime accusas, 
 obolo factum ditiorem" 7 " Be assured that I 
 have not attained to that affluence of good 
 things, and to that wealth with which you 
 upbraid me; and that, on that particular ac- 
 count, which forms the principal subject of 
 your accusation, I have not been made one 
 penny the richer" But the munificence of 
 the Council might have been posterior to the 
 date of this writing; or the testimony of the 
 passage may be regarded as not sufficiently 
 explicit to be admitted against the positive 
 
388 LIFE OF MILTON. 
 
 assertion of Toland, coinciding with the gene- 
 ral character of the republican government. 
 
 But Milton experienced a reward of 
 much higher value in his estimation than 
 any pecuniary remuneration. While his op- 
 ponent's production lingered on the vender's 
 shelves or crept languidly through a very 
 confined circulation, his own passed rapidly 
 through a variety of impressions, 2 and occu- 
 pied a large space in the public mind. It 
 made its author, says Bayle, the subject of 
 conversation over the world ; and the distinc- 
 tion, with which it was branded at Paris and 
 Toulouse, in which cities it was burnt by the 
 common hangman, contributed to increase 
 rather than to lessen the extent of its fame. 
 
 Proportioned to the triumph of Milton 
 were the humiliation and chagrin of his 
 
 z ,In a letter from Ley den, dated on the 8th of May 1051, to 
 his friend J. Vossius, then at Stockholm, N. Heinsius says that 
 of Milton's work five editions .had been already published that 
 It had been translated into Dutch, and was then translating, as he 
 heard, into French. Virulentum Miltoni librum jamdudum ad 
 vos perlatum confido. Ejus editiones quinque jam hie vidimus: 
 Belgicam etiam versionem, Gallicam nunc adornari ferunt. Burm. 
 Syll. iii. 60O. The Defensio Regia, it is true, was not without its 
 readers; and, favoured by a numerous and strong party, it passed 
 more than once and in more than one form through the press: 
 but, with reference to the sale and the circulation of the " De- 
 fence of the People of England," those of the " Royal Defence'' 
 were certainly very languid and confined. 
 
LIFE OF MILTON. 389 
 
 adversary. Elated and inflamed by habi- 
 tual superiority, his arrogant and assuming 
 spirit was ill formed to acquiesce in defeat; 
 and in defeat by a man with whose name, 
 till the moment of the encounter, he was 
 probably unacquainted. The result indeed 
 of this unfortunate contest was peculiarly af- 
 flicting to the feelings, and unpropitious to 
 the interests of Salmasius. a The numerous 
 enemies, whom his want of moderation had 
 excited, now exulted on his fall : his work 
 was suppressed in Holland by an order of 
 the States General, and Christina, the capri- 
 cious sovereign of Sweden, who had previ- 
 ously entertained him with the most honour- 
 able distinction and in whose court he was 
 residing when Milton's reply reached Stock- 
 holm, now averted her countenance and 
 treated him with studied neglect. She had 
 almost compelled his visit by the impor- 
 tunity of her invitations; and her attentions 
 to him had been of so marked and peculiar 
 
 41 May it be noticed as remarkable that in his " Eloge fune- 
 bre," which I have already mentioned, (p. 350 in the note,,) 
 the Dutch professor, Vorstius, studiously avoids every allusion to 
 this memorable controversy? By no process of art or strain of in- 
 genuity could it be forced to yield any materials adapted to his 
 friendly purposes. To convert the basest mineral into gold 
 would be as easy an exploit as to form the dirty substance of the 
 f{ Defensio Regia," and the posthumous " Responsio" into 
 wreath of glory for the brow of their author. 
 
300 LIFE OF MILTON. 
 
 a nature as to awaken, according to com- 
 mon report, the jealousies of Madame de 
 Samnaise. b On the discovery however of 
 his inferiority as a writer to his English an- 
 tagonist, the Queen is stated, in some of the 
 newspapers of that day, to have " cashiered 
 him. her favour as a pernicious parasite and 
 a promoter of tyranny." c She certainly mor- 
 tified him by her liberal praises of Milton's 
 composition, and discovered in her manner 
 a degree of coldness of which he was acutely 
 sensible* It has been asserted that the va- 
 rious afflictions of his pride on this occasion 
 proved eventually fatal to his life; and it 
 cannot surely be regarded as improbable that 
 the pains arising from such a cause should) 
 in their intensity, be injurious to health and 
 accelerate the crisis of dissolution. Let this, 
 however, be decided according to the reader's 
 fancy: Salnjasius retired from the court of 
 
 h When he was indisposed, or confined to his room by the 
 cold of the climate, the Queen would visit him in his chamber, 
 and, locking the door, would light his fire, make his breakfast, 
 and stay with him for some hours. This was the report of the 
 day, and if it be true, we cannot reasonably be surprised at his 
 wife's jealousy. 
 
 c The expressions, which I have copied, are from Nedham's 
 te Mercurius Politicus." But Nedham was a great crony, as 
 Wood tells .as, of Milton's, and might therefore be suspected 
 of exaggerating the fact in question. 
 
LIFE OF MILTON. 391 
 
 Stockholm in September 1651, and died d at 
 Spa in Germany, in the following September, 
 when he had just completed a most virulent 
 reply to sting if he could not mortally wound 
 his successful adversary. But this last product 
 of the mind of the great Salmasius, which was 
 published with happy malignity in the year of 
 the Restoration, and dedicated by his son to 
 Charles II, was of a character to hurt only the 
 memory of its author. On the devoted head 
 of Milton, it accumulated every crime which 
 can debase our poor nature, and every oppro- 
 brious epithet which from the most copious 
 vocabulary the most curious and zealous ran- 
 
 d Of the gout, to which he had been subject, as his bio- 
 grapher Clement assures us : but few complaints are more ex- 
 asperated by the disorders of the mind than the gout. 
 
 The violent agitation of his spirits, in consequence of the 
 power of Milton's reply to him, is attested by all the contem- 
 porary scholars who had access to him at the time; and the con- 
 flict of so much strong and bad passion was more than sufficient 
 to overthrow a frame, not naturally vigorous and then enfeebled by 
 disease. An idle story, of his ghost's appearing to terrify his 
 widow, was in popular circulation. N. Heinsius alludes to it 
 very jocularly, in a letter to his friend, Gronovius. De spectro 
 res faceta est. Conjux vivum exagitarat, nunc ille conjugem 
 mortuus. [Burm. Syll. iii. 32Q.] 
 
 It is certain that at the crisis of this controversy the mind of 
 Salmasius was so strongly affected as to induce the paroxysm of a 
 fever. The fact is ascertained in another letter from N. Heinsius to 
 Gronovius. Interim ne nihil agat, (speaking of Salmasius, Hein- 
 sius says,) ex febricula decumbit, quam illi studium iltucl arden? 
 conciliasse visum, sic ultimi ferebant nuncii The latter is dated 
 on the 4th of June, 1051. [Ibid. 270.] 
 
392 tlFE OF MILTON. 
 
 cour could extort. As I am not possessed of 
 this paltry work, to which the passions of an 
 eminent man could induce him to conde- 
 scend, I am compelled to rest my report of 
 it on the testimony of Vossius who saw it in 
 manuscript, of Bayle, and of Div Birch. 
 From the last of these writers, I shall insert 
 a further account of it in a note. 6 
 
 e His reply to Miltoif did not appear till the year of the Res- 
 toration, when it was printed at London in 24to, under the fol- 
 lowing title; " Claudii Salmasii ad Joannem Miltonum Respon- 
 sio, Opus posthunum," with a dedication to Charles II, by Sal- 
 masius's son Claudius, dated at Dijon, Sept. 1, 1660. This Book 
 is written with unexampled virulence. He treats Milton as an 
 ordinary schoolmaster; " Qui Ludimagister in schola trivial! 
 Londinensi fuit;" and charges him with having divorced his wife 
 after a year's marriage, for reasons best known to himself, and de- 
 fending the lawfulness of divorce for any causes whatsoever. He 
 stiles him " impura bellua, quse nihil hominis sibi reliqui fecit 
 pfaeter lippientes oeulos j" and charges him with some false quan- 
 tities in his Latin juvenile poems; and throughout the whole book 
 gives him the titles of Bellua, fanaticus latro, Homunculus, Lip- 
 pulus, Cseculus, Homo perditissimus, Nebulo impurus, scelestus 
 audax & nefarius Alastor, infhndus Impostor, &c. and declares, 
 that he would have him tortured with burning pitch or scalding 
 oil till he expired: " Pro caeteris autem tuis factis dictisque dig- 
 num dicam videri, qui pice ardenti, vel oleo fervente perfundaris, 
 usque dum animam e/Bes nocentem et carnifid jam pridem debi- 
 tam." [Account of Life and Writings of Milton, p. xxxvi.] 
 
 The virulence of this work is frequently made the subject of 
 allusion by the learned correspondents of that age. Speaking of 
 this Responsio by Salmasius, Heinsius says in a letter to his friend 
 Gronovius Salmasius Miltonum suum defncare pergitj in edendo 
 Itorrilili isto scrlpto graviter desudant operse typographic^ in 
 Suecia. 
 
LIFE OF MILTON". 393 
 
 The publication of this reply to Milton, 
 which was delayed, as we have noticed, for 
 some years, was preceded by that of two others, 
 produced with different degrees of power, 
 but equally envenomed and aimed equally 
 at the heart. The earliest of these anony- 
 mous replies, which was erroneously imputed 
 by Milton to bishop Bramhall, appeared in 
 1651 with the strange title of " Apologia pro 
 liege et Populo Anglicano contra Johannis 
 Polypragmatici (alias Miltoni Angli) Defen- 
 sionem destructivam, &c. and the second, 
 written by Peter du Moulin, (the son of an 
 obscure French satirist of Sedan, but who 
 subsequently obtained by his party merits a 
 prebendal stall in Canterbury,) was published 
 at the Hague in 1652, and called, " Regii 
 sanguinis clamor ad coelum adversus parri- 
 cidas Anglicanos," or " The Cry of Royal 
 Blood to Heaven against the English Parri- 
 cides/' To the former of these works, which 
 was altogether a contemptible production., 
 and which came from the pen of John Row- 
 
 And a little after he adds; 
 
 Miror intemperiem profecto hominis furiosi et quietis impa- 
 tientem animum. Tot praestantium animarura ultrices scilicet 
 ilium 
 
 Exagitant Furiae et Furiarum maxima conjux. 
 
 Bnrm. Syll. iii. 2;4. 
 This letter bears date July 50th 1651. 
 
394 LIFE OF MILTON. 
 
 land/ an English ecclesiastic of whom we 
 
 f We have this information from himself in a subsequent pro- 
 duction ; which was published in 1053, and dedicated to the Em- 
 peror Ferdinand III. The title of the work is " Polemica, sive 
 supplementum ad Apologiam Anonymam pro Rege & Populo An- 
 glicano, adversus Jo. Miltoni Defensionem populi Anglicank, per 
 Jo. Rowlandum, Pastorem Anglicum." 
 
 In this work, Mr. Rowland refers in several places to his pre- 
 ceding publication against Milton; and seems pleased with the 
 circumstance of his being mistaken for the courtly bishop of 
 Derry. 
 
 P. 22. " Haec in Apologia mea obscure tacta sunt." 
 
 P. 41, 42. " Ego interea, post ante dictos pugiles, Salmasium 
 ct Miltonum, unus e turba sine nomine, veritatis solius patrocinio 
 nixus, pacis semper cupidus, indignatione potius quam ammo 
 soribendi, me ad aliquid scribendum applicavi. 
 
 Semper ego auditor tantum, nunquamne reponam 
 Vexatus toties ? 
 
 Ut verb Regem et Popnlum, quos Salmasius 
 
 sua defensione regia, Miltonus sua defensione populi, diviserant, 
 conciliarem; nee enim Rex sine Populo nee Populus sine Rege 
 tain felixesse poterit, utrumque conjungendo, (testis non arbiter,) 
 quantam, quautam mea tenuitas pateretur, pro Rege et Populo 
 Anglicano Apologiam edidi" 
 
 P. 48. t( Cui/' (speaking of his antagonist Philips,) " ratio 
 non est quod ipse succenserem, qui errando circa authorem Apo- 
 logia;, me dignitate Episcopali honoravit; et Episcopum Dirrr 
 haeum, aulicorum sacerdotum primipilum, omni vitiorum labe 
 maculavit." 
 
 P. 49. Non sum enim Johannes Bramalius, Episcopus Dirr- 
 hseus aulicus, sed Johannes Rowlandus, Anglicus Pastor Ecclesiae 
 particularis." 
 
 What is meant by the expression, " Ecclesiae particularis," I 
 am at a loss to discover : but I am frequently puzzled by Mr. 
 Rowland; the barbarisms and solecisms of whose page forbade me 
 
LIFE OF MILTON. 3.9.5 
 
 know nothing but by his own report/' an an- 
 swer was written by John Philips, Milton's 
 youngest nephew, who had not then attained 
 his twentieth year: against the latter Milton 
 drew his own formidable pen; and we shall 
 soon have occasion to speak of the brilliant 
 result. 
 
 Before we finally dismiss from our no- 
 tice the " Defence of the People of Eng- 
 land/' it may be proper to mention that 
 the curiosity respecting its author, which 
 it generally excited, gave rise to a corre- 
 spondence, among the leading scholars of that 
 age, which supplies us with some valuable 
 
 to ascribe it, before I was acquainted with its author, to a man of 
 such respectable learning rmd talents as Bramhall. 
 
 Though I wrote this note with Rowland's " Polemica," in my 
 hand, and drew my information respecting him from a source of 
 my own, it would be uncandid in me not to acknowledge that 
 Mr.Toddhas preceded me on the ground, and, that his correction 
 of my former ignorance, on the subject immediately before us, is 
 at this moment under my eye. To Rowland's assertion of the 
 " Apologia, &c." as the issue of his own brain, Mr. Todd has 
 been enabled to add an express disavowal of this work, with an 
 assignment of it to its proper author, by the prelate to whom it 
 had been so injuriously attributed. In a letter to his son, from 
 Antwerp in May 1654, which has lately been discovered among 
 the bishop's papers, Bramhall says, <e That silly book, which he, 
 (Milton,) imputes to me, was written by one John Rowland, who 
 since hath replied upon him. I never read a word either of the 
 first book or of the reply in my life." [Tocld's Life of Milton, 
 2d ed. p. 82, 83.] 
 
396 LIFE OF MILTON. 
 
 and interesting information. 2 Isaac Vossius, 
 who after the Restoration was made one of 
 the Canons of Windsor, being at the court 
 of Stockholm when the " Defence" was pub- 
 lished, relates the warm approbation which 
 Christina expressed of Milton's work, and 
 unites his own applauses with those of the 
 Queen. h Francis Junius, the writer of " De 
 
 s In a letter from Stockholm dated on the 12th of April 165J, 
 Isaac Vossius writes to N. Heinsius Liber Miltoni heri hue est 
 allatus. Exemplar meum petiit a me Regina. Ipse non nisi 
 cursim dum perlustravi. Nihil tale ab Anglo expectaram: et 
 certe, nisi me animus fallit, placuit quoque, uno tantum excepto, 
 incomparabili nostrae Dominee, Dicit tamen Salmasius se perdi- 
 turum auctorem cum toto Parlamento. [Burm. Syll. iii. 595.] 
 In a letter written a few days afterwards to the same correspon- 
 dent, Vossius says, Miltoni apologiam pro Parlamento suo priori 
 accepimus hebdomade. Legit istud scriptum incomparabilis nostra 
 Domina, et, nisi fallor, valde ei placuit. Certe et ingenium istius 
 viri et scribendi genus multis preesentibus collaudavit. fib. 596.] 
 
 h De Miltono (says Isaac Vossius in a letter to N. Heinsius, 
 dated on the 8th of June 1651) jam certior factus sum ab avun- 
 culo meo Junio, qui cum eo familiaritatem colit. Is mihi signi- 
 licavit eum Parlamento esse a Secretis in negotiis externis, esse, 
 multarum linguarum peritum, non quidem nobili, sed tamen 
 generosa, ut ipsi loquuntur, ortum stirpe, discipulum Patricii 
 Junii, comem, affabilem, multisque aliis prseditum virtutibus. 
 Burm. Syll. iii. 618.] In the library of Trin. Coll. Dublin,, [as 
 I am informed by the kindness of Mr. J. Cooper Walker J is pre- 
 served a volume of Milton's prose-tracts, which had been pre- 
 sented with an inscription by the Author to this Junius j who was- 
 not less celebrated for his Anglo-Saxon than for his classical erudi- 
 tion. Junius in his report to his nephew., mistakes the Christian 
 name of Milton's tutor, and substitutes Patrick for Thomas. 
 
LIFE OF MILTON. 397 
 
 PicturA Veterum," a learned treatise on the 
 painting of the Ancients, and who was inti- 
 mate with our author, speaks in the most fa- 
 vourable terms of the extent of his literary 
 acquisitions, of his unblemished morals, of 
 his mild and pleasing manners. Nicholas 
 Heinsius, who then resided at Venice, bears 
 testimony, from information collected on the 
 spot, to the purity (the Italians called it au- 
 sterity) of Milton's conduct during his visit 
 to Italy, and rescues him in this instance 
 from the slanders of Salmasius. N. Hein- 
 sius k also professes his admiration of the 
 " Defence of the People of England/' but 
 
 J In a letter to Isaac Vossius dated from Venice on the 1 8th 
 of Feb. 1653,, N. Heinsius, after treating the abominable calum- 
 nies of Salmasius respecting Milton with contempt, proceeds to 
 say Imo invisus est Italis Anglus iste (Miltonns) inter quos 
 multo vixit tempore, ob mores nimis severos; cum et de religione 
 libenter disputaret, &c. A little before, the letter-writer had 
 spoken of Milton's Latin poetry: Poemata ejus mihi ostendit 
 Holstenius. Nihil ilia ad elegantiam apologise. In prosodiam 
 peccavit frequenter. Magnus igitur Salmasianae crisi campus hie 
 apertus: sed qua fronte alienos iste versus notabit cujus Musis 
 nihil est cacatius? [Ib. iii. 669.]- 
 
 k In a letter to J. F. Gronovius dated from Amsterdam, on the 
 1st of June 1651, N. Heinsius says " Misit (Salmasius) duas in 
 hanc urbem nuper epistolas, rabiei Sycophant icae non inanes, 
 quibus omne se virus in me conversurum minatur quod Miltoni 
 scriptum probari a me intelligat. Ego vero et dixi et dicam porro 
 malam a Miltono causam tarn bene actam quam Regis infelicis- 
 simi causam pessime egit Scrilonius. Burm, Syll. iii. 270. 
 
398 LIFE OF MILTON. 
 
 speaks with disrespect of the writer's Latin 
 poetry, as greatly inferior in merit to his prose 
 composition, and as censurable for its fre- 
 quent offences against quantity. On the sub- 
 ject of this charge we have already had oc- 
 casion to remark; and it may now be neces- 
 sary only to observe that, if we except the 
 scazons addressed to Salsilli and the ode to 
 Rouse, in both of which pieces the poet may 
 be regarded as guilty rather of new and un- 
 warrantable fabrics of verse than of violations 
 of quantity, the accusation, though not ground- 
 less, seems to overpass the occasion and to be 
 too strong for the actual delinquency. 
 
 As the " Iconoclastes" and the " Defence 
 of the People of England" w^ere composed 
 between the closes of the years 1649 and 
 1651 they were of course completed before 
 the author's removal to Petty-France, which 
 did not take place till the beginning of 1652. 
 On the second of May, in this year, his fa- 
 mily was increased by the birth of his fourth 
 child, Deborah; and the mother dying in 
 childbed, he was left, with three orphan 
 daughters, in domestic solitude, and in a 
 state rapidly advancing if it had not already 
 reached to total blindness. The prediction of 
 his physicians was now to experience its fatal 
 accomplishment. His sight, naturally weak 
 
LIFE OF MILTON. 399 
 
 and impaired by incessant study from the 
 earliest periods of his life, had for several 
 years been sensibly declining, and, when he 
 engaged in his last great work, had disco- 
 vered, as we have remarked, symptoms of 
 approaching extinction. In the course of 
 that honourable labour he entirely lost the 
 vision of one eye; and that of the other 
 closing soon afterward, he was resigned to 
 entire darkness, and " for the book of know* 
 ledge fair" was 
 
 ft Presented with an universal blank 
 Of Nature's works." 
 
 Of this completion of his misfortune the 
 date is by no means accurately settled. All 
 his biographers, with the exception of Mr. 
 Todd, place the melancholy consummation in 
 1 654; but it unquestionably happened in some 
 antecedent period. In his letter to Philaras, 
 written in the autumn of 1654, Milton speaks 
 of his loss of sight as of no very recent mis- 
 fortune; and we know that when he was vi- 
 sited by his Athenian friend, at a time not 
 greatly posterior to the publication of the 
 " Defence," he was then totally blind. Mr. 
 Todd has noticed in Thuiioe's State Papers a 
 letter from the Hague, dated June the 20th, 
 1653, in which Milton is mentioned as blind; 
 
400 LIFE OF MILTON. 
 
 and it must not be forgotten that the writer 
 of the " Regii sanguinis Clamor," published 
 in 1652, upbraids him with his blindness as 
 an infliction of the Divine wrath, and selects 
 for the motto of his work Virgil's description 
 of the eyeless Cyclops 
 
 Monstrum horrendum, informe, ingens, cui lumen ademptum. 
 A monster horrid, hideous, huge, and blind. 
 
 We must conclude therefore, that his total 
 loss of sight soon followed the publication of 
 his answer to Salmasius, and happened early 
 in 1652. 
 
 The fortitude, with which he supported 
 himself under this afflicting privation, is ad- 
 mirably discovered in that sonnet to his friend 
 Cyriac Skinner, of which I have already spoken 
 with praise and which I shall now transcribe. 
 I could never read it without paying to its au- 
 thor the profound homage of my respect. 
 
 TO CYRIAC SKIN NEB. 
 
 CYRIAC, this three years day, these eyes, though clear 
 
 To outward view of blemish or of spot, 
 
 Bereft of light, their seeing have forgot; 
 Nor to their idle orbs doth sight appear 
 Of sun, or moon, or star throughout the year, 
 
 1 Vous avez en Angleterre un aveugle, nomme Milton, qui a 
 Ie renom d'avoir bien escrit v. i. p. 26J . 
 
LIFE OP MILTON. 
 
 Or man or woman : yet I argue not 
 
 Against Heaven's hand or will,, nor bate a jot 
 Of heart or hopej but still bear up and steer 
 Right onward. What supports me, dost thou ask? 
 
 The conscience, friend,, to have lost them overplied 
 In liberty's defence, my noble task,, 
 
 Of which all Europe rings from side to side: 
 This thought might lead me through the world's vain mask., 
 
 Content, though blind., had I no better guide. 
 
 He was forewarned, as we have observed, 
 of the contingent calamity, and, in the alter- 
 native of evils, he preferred the loss of sight 
 to the dereliction of duty. The magnani- 
 mity of Achilles, to which he alludes in the 
 following interesting passage in his " Second 
 Defence/' can scarcely be considered as su- 
 perior to his own. 
 
 " Ade6 ut cum datum mihi public^ esset 
 illud in Defensionem Regiam negotium, eo- 
 demque tempore et adversa simul valetudine, 
 et oculo jam pene altero amisso, conflictarer, 
 prredicerentque diserte medici, si hunc la- 
 borem suscepissem, fore ut utrumque brevi 
 amitterem, nihil ista praemonitione deter- 
 ritus, non medici, ne /Esculapii quidem Epi- 
 daurii ex adyto vocem, sed divinioris cujus- 
 dam intus monitoris viderer mihi audire; 
 duasque sortes, fatali quodam natn, jam 
 mihi propositas, hinc caecitatem inde offi- 
 
 cium; aut oculorum jacturam necessario fa- 
 
 2 D 
 
402 LIFE OF MILTON. 
 
 ciendam, aut surmnum officium deserendum: 
 occurrebantque animo bina ilia fata, quae 
 retulisse Delphis consulentem de se matrem 
 narrat Thetidis filius. 
 
 eplfav Savoiroio 
 
 El pzv K &u$i pivuuv T jpcJcwy T&oXtv df 
 "'XZAsro piv poi vo<rTo$, drag xXgd; d'pQilov z<rrai 
 Ei 8s KSY oi'xaJ' fawpai tpityv \$ rerar^ <(5a 
 
 Uncle sic mecum reputabam, multos gra- 
 viore malo minus bonum, morte gloriam, re- 
 demisse; mihi contra majus bonum minore 
 cum malo proponi: ut possem cum csecitate 
 sol& vel honestissimum officii munus implere ; 
 quod ut ipsd glori^ per se est solidius, ita 
 cuique optatius atque antiquius debet esse. 
 H4c igitur tarn brevi luminum usuni, quant^ 
 maximd quivi cum utilitate public^, quoad 
 liceret, fruendum esse statui. Videtis quid 
 praetulerim, quid amiserim, qufi- inductus ra- 
 tione: desinant erg6 judiciorum Dei calum- 
 niatores maledicere, deque me somnia sibi 
 fingere: sic denique habento; me sortis meae 
 neque pigere neque pcenitere; immotum at- 
 que fixum in sententia perstare; Deurn ira- 
 tum neque sentire, neque habere, imm6 
 maximis in rebus cjementiam ejus et benig- 
 
LIFE OF MILTON. 403 
 
 nitatem erga me paternam experiri atque 
 agnoscere. m 
 
 " So that when the task of replying to the 
 " Defence of the King" was publicly com- 
 mitted to me, at a time when I had to con- 
 tend with ill-health, and when one of my 
 eyes being nearly lost my physicians clearly 
 predicted that, if I undertook the laborious 
 work, I should soon be deprived of both, un- 
 deterred by the warning, I seemed to hear a 
 voice not of a physician or issuing from the 
 shrine of Epidaurian JEsculapius, but of 
 some internal and more divine monitor; and 
 conceiving that by some fatal decree the 
 alternative of two lots was proposed to me, 
 that I must either lose my sight or must de- 
 sert a high duty, the two destinies occurred 
 to me, which the son of Thetis reports to 
 have been submitted to him by his mother 
 from the oracle of Delphi. 
 
 ff For, as the goddess spake who gave me birth, 
 Two fates attend me whilst I live on earth. 
 If fix'd, I combat by the Trojan wall, 
 Deathless my fame, but certain is my fall : 
 If I return, beneath my native sky 
 My days shall flourish long my glory die." 
 
 *P.W. v. 216. 
 
404 LIFE OF MILTOJST. 
 
 Reflecting therefore with myself that many 
 had purchased less good with greater evil, 
 and had even paid life as the price of glory; 
 while to me the greater good was offered at 
 the expence of the less evil, as merely by in- 
 curring blindness I might satisfy the most 
 honourable demand of duty; which, intrin- 
 sically of more worth even than glory itself, 
 ought to be the first and dearest object of 
 every man's regard; I determined to dedi- 
 cate the short enjoyment of my eyesight, 
 with as much effect as I could, to the public 
 advantage. You see then what I have pre- 
 ferred, what I have lost, what motives in- 
 fluenced my conduct. Let my slanderers 
 therefore desist from their calumnies, nor 
 make me the subject of their visionary and 
 dreaming fancies: let them know that I am 
 far from regretting my lot, or from repent- 
 ing of my choice : let them be assured that 
 my mind and my opinions are immoveably 
 the same; that 1 am neither conscious of 
 the anger of God, nor believe that I am ex- 
 posed to it; but, on the contrary, that I have 
 experienced in the niosi momentous events 
 of my life, and am still sensible of his mercy 
 and paternal kindness/' 
 
 Equally unascertained with that of his 
 blindness is the precise date of his second 
 
LIFE OF MILTON". 405 
 
 marriage; which took place, as we are in- 
 formed, about two years after his entire loss 
 of sight. The lady, whom he chose on this 
 occasion, was Catherine the daughter of a 
 captain Woodcock of Hackney. She seems 
 to have been the object of her husband's 
 fondest affection; and, dying, like her pre- 
 decessor, in childbed, within a year after her 
 marriage, she was lamented by him in a 
 pleasing and pathetic sonnet. The daughter, 
 whom she bore to him, soon followed her to 
 the tomb. As I shall insert the sonnet, which 
 will be felt by every sensitive bosom, it may 
 not be irrelevant to remark that the thought 
 in its concluding line, which on a cursory 
 view may be branded as a conceit, is strictly 
 correct and just. In his dreams a blind man 
 may expatiate in the full blaze of the sun, n 
 and the morning, in which he awakes, un- 
 questionably restores him to his darkness. 
 The fault is in the expression alone, 
 
 " I waked she fled: and I replunged in night," 
 
 would perhaps be sufficiently unexcep* 
 tionable. 
 
 n So Lucretius, lib. iv. 458. 
 
 et noctis caligine caeca 
 
 Cernere censemus solem, lumenque diurnuna. 
 
406* LIF OF MILTON. 
 
 ON HIS DECEASED WIFE. 
 
 Methought I saw my late espoused saint, 
 
 Brought to me, like Alcestis, from Ihe grave, 
 
 Whom Jove's great son to her glad husband gave, 
 Rescued from Death by force, though pale and faint : 
 Mine, as whom, wash'd from spot of childbed taint, 
 
 Purification in the old law did save, 
 
 And such as yet once more I trust to have 
 Full sight of her in heaven without restraint} 
 Came, vested all in white, pure as her mind: 
 
 Her face was veil'd, yet to my fancied sight 
 Love, sweetness, goodness in her person shined 
 
 So clear, as in no face with more delight. 
 But O ! as to embrace me she inclined, 
 
 I wakedj she fled, and day brought back my night. 
 
 During this period of his domestic history, 
 the powers of Milton were vigorously and ef- 
 ficaciously employed in the hostilities of con- 
 troversy. In 1652, the " Regii Sanguinis 
 Clamor/' &c. a work replete with the most 
 virulent abuse against the English, and with 
 the most atrocious invectives and calumnies 
 against Milton, was published, as we have 
 before noticed, at the Hague. Fearful of 
 avowing a production, which might expose 
 him at that juncture to more than literary 
 peril, Du Moulin, who afterwards professed 
 himself to be the writer of this violent work, 
 sent it in manuscript to Salmasius; and by 
 
 This fact is related by Du Moulin himself in the prefatory 
 epistle, from which I have made an extract in one of the subse- 
 quent pages. 
 
LIFE OF MILTON. 407 
 
 him, for the purpose of publication, it was 
 consigned to Alexander Morus, or More; 
 whom this circumstance has lifted into unen- 
 viable celebrity. 
 
 Of Scotch parentage, but settled in France 
 and at this time principal of the protestant 
 college of Castres p in Languedoc, Morus pos- 
 sessed talents and learning, and his renown 
 as a preacher, resulting however less from his 
 composition than from his manner and elo- 
 cution, was not exceeded, if it were equalled 
 by that of any of his competitors in the pul- 
 pit. With his natural presumption and self- 
 confidence increased by this evidence of his 
 powers, and perhaps not aware of the full ex- 
 tent of the danger which he was incurring, 
 he did not for an instant decline the invi- 
 dious office, assigned to him by Sahnasius; 
 but, withholding his own name on the occa- 
 sion, and writing, under that of Adrian Ulac 
 the printer, a dedication to the exiled king, 
 he committed the offensive manuscript to 
 the press. 
 
 On this new provocation, the powers of 
 Milton were again commanded into exertion 
 by the government of his country; and in 
 
 P Now in the Department of Du Tarn, of which it is the 
 chief towa. 
 
408 LIFE OF MILTON. 
 
 . 
 
 1654 he produced the most interesting, if 
 not the most striking of all his prose compo- 
 sitions, " A second Defence of the People 
 of England." i 
 
 To repel that flood of slanders, with 
 which his barbarian adversary had attempted 
 to overwhelm him, it became necessary for 
 the author to insist on many parts of his 
 own history, and to disclose the springs 
 within his bosom which had uniformly ac- 
 tuated his conduct. In the execution of this 
 delicate task, he speaks with so much of the 
 unfaltering dignity of truth, and respecting 
 facts so immediately under the correction 
 of numbers who must have been acquainted 
 with them, that it is impossible for us to re- 
 fuse him our assent. This production has 
 copiously supplied his biographers with ma- 
 terials of peculiar value, as they cannot be 
 obtained in any other place, and as their au- 
 thenticity cannot be doubted. The defen- 
 sive part therefore of this work constitutes 
 at present its principal interest: but, at the 
 time of its publication, its active hostility was 
 the immediate and chief cause of its celebrity 
 
 i The proper and full title of the work is " Johannis Mil- 
 tonii Angli, pro Populo Anglicano Defensio secunda contra in- 
 famem libellum Anonymum cui titulus," " Regii sanguinis- 
 clamor ad coelum adversus parricidas Anglicanos." London. 
 
LIFE OF MILTOX. 409 
 
 and effect. The moral character of Morus was 
 unhappily not proof against attack. With a 
 quarrelsome and overbearing temper, he has 
 been represented by some of his contempo- 
 raries as the cause of war, like another He- 
 len, wherever he came, or, like an Ishmael, 
 with his hand lifted against every body while 
 every body's hand was lifted against him; and 
 his uncontrolled attachment to women was 
 productive of adventures, not calculated to 
 reflect honour upon a minister of the Gospel. 
 Enabled to possess himself of the most 
 correct information and with talents to im- 
 prove it into the means of the most wound- 
 ing offence, Milton pursues his adversary 
 through the opprobrious privacies of his im- 
 morality; and exacts a severe revenge for 
 those savage insults/ in the guilt of which, as 
 
 r We iiave already cited a passage from the Regii Sanguinis 
 Clamor, in which Milton is charged with having been expelled 
 from Cambridge, and forced to fly, from punishment and disgrace, 
 into Italy. [See note, p. 70.] To convey some idea to our 
 readers of the spirit and style of those men to whom Milton in 
 his replies has been accused of immoderate severity, and to show 
 that Du Moulin did not unsuccessfully copy the great controver- 
 sial model which he had studied in Saimasius, we will defile our 
 page with another short extract from the virulent production now 
 published by Morus. Unus inventus est, post eruditionem extra 
 fines suos relegatam, qui Latine scribere auderet, magnus scilicet 
 heros quern Salmasio opponerent, Johannes Miltonus. Quis et 
 unde dubium: homone ? an vermis heri e sterquilinio editusr'V 
 
410 LIFE OF MILTON. 
 
 their publisher and prefacer, Morus was 
 beyond any question a party and accom- 
 plice. Among other licentious amours of 
 which Morus stood accused, his connexion 
 with a servant girl, whom he was said to 
 have corrupted with a promise of marriage 
 and afterward, in her pregnancy, to have 
 deserted, had been made the subject of a 
 legal prosecution by Madame de Saumaise, 
 the girl's mistress, and had consequently be- 
 come a topic of very general conversation. 
 With reference to this piece of scandalous 
 history, an unlucky epigram, commonly at- 
 
 and a little after " Miltonum arripuerunt, et illud ignobile lutum 
 in Salmasium jaculati sunt" [Reg. San. Clam. p. 8.] In this 
 work Milton is styled ' ( Tartareus furcifer teterrimus carnifex 
 tale hominis monstrum, &c. c. Is it surprising that to an oppo- 
 nent with such language the answer should not be mild? But Du 
 Moulin's scurrility, gross as it is, is scarcely equal to his profane- 
 ness. Not satisfied with making the sufferings of Charles and 
 those of our blessed Lord precisely similar and parallel cases, he 
 does not hesitate to affirm that the crime of the Jews, when they 
 crucified Jesus Christ, was incomparably less than that of the Eng- 
 lish, when they brought their king to the scaffold ! ! ! tc Prae isto,'- 
 (says this Christian divine and dignitary of the English Church,) 
 " nihil fuit Judaeorum scelus Christum cruci figentium, sive ho- 
 minum men tern, sive sceieris effectus compares," &c. [p. 4.] and 
 his reasoning on the subject is curious. The comparison be- 
 tween the sufferings of the deposed monarch and those of tf the 
 Lord of Life," is to be found further in the volume, at p. 54, . f >5 
 of the first edition: fora second edition of this execrable work 
 was published in 1659, that it's author might not lose his reward 
 at the glorious harvest of the Restoration. 
 
LIFE OF MILTON. 411 
 
 tributed to Milton, had already appeared in 
 Nedham's " Mercurius Politicus;" and it was 
 now again published in the work of which 
 we are speaking. Depending altogether on a 
 verbal conceit, its poignancy is not transfer- 
 able to our language; and, as it is not re- 
 markable for its delicacy, it may be left with- 
 out regret under the veil of its original Latin. 
 
 Galli ex concubitu gravidam te, Pontia, Mori 
 Quis bene moratam, morigeramque neget ? * 
 
 On this point of attack Morus, in his reply, 
 gave his antagonist an advantage by inad- 
 vertently correcting the orthography of the 
 ghTs name, and affirming that it ought to be 
 written Bontia and not Pontia. After all 
 however, the fact seems to be disputable, at 
 least in the atrocity which has been imputed 
 to it: for the issue of Madame de Saumaise's 
 prosecution was favourable to Morus; and 
 the charge against him has been ascribed, by 
 some of his contemporaries, rather to his neg- 
 lect of the mistress than to his affection for 
 the maid. 1 
 
 8 The English reader however may accept the following sub- 
 stitute for the punning point of the original. 
 
 Though Pontia's big, cease, dames, to call her whore ; 
 You bear a spotless name,but she bears MORI. 
 
 1 Madame de Saumaise's character was not of such immacu- 
 late purity as to be exempt from suspicion and censure. Ift 
 
412 LIFE OF 'MILTOX. 
 
 A threat having been suggested, in the 
 " Regii sanguinis Clamor/ &c. of a second 
 edition of Salmasius's work, or rather of the 
 publication of a new production by that ce- 
 lebrated scholar, Milton derides the menace 
 with the contempt which might have been 
 expected, " Tu igitur, ut pisciculus ille ante- 
 ambulo, prsecurris baleenam Salmasium, iiii- 
 pressiones in haec littora minitantem," &c. 
 " You/' says he to Morus, " like some little 
 pilot fish, precede the great whale Salmasius, 
 and menace us with his incursions on our 
 shore:" and then, pursuing the idea which 
 had been thus accidentally presented to him, 
 he ridicules the threatened publication in the 
 following light sally: 
 
 " Gaudete Scombri, et quicquid est piscium salo, 
 Qui frigida hyeme incolitis aJgentes freta, 
 Vestrum misertus ille Salmasius eques 
 Bonus amicire nuditatem cogitat ; 
 
 Burman's Sylloge Epist. we find some curious anecdotes re- 
 specting her, which were in circulation among her contempo- 
 raries. She was accustomed to whip with her own hands, as 
 N. Heinsius mentions, a boy of seventeen, who was one of her 
 servants ; and Moms' s mistress, who is called an English or a 
 Scotch girl, (Hebe Caledonia,) is said to have been her lady's assist- 
 ant at the infliction of the punishment. Madame de Saumaise's 
 violent prosecution of Morus seems to have been prompted by 
 that resentment which results from disappointed love, and the 
 
 " spretse injuria formas :" 
 rather than by a calm regard to virtue and its interests. The 
 
LIFE OF MILTON. 413 
 
 Chartaeque largus apparat papyrinos 
 Vobis cucullos, praeferentes Claudii 
 Insignia riomenque et decus Salmasii, 
 Gestetis ut per omne cetarium forum 
 Equitis clientes, scriniis mungentium 
 Cubito virorum, et capsulis gratissiraos." 
 
 <c Ye herrings, and ye fish, who glide , >] 
 
 In winter through our northern tide, 
 Rejoice! Salmasius, noble knight! 
 Pitying your cold and naked plight, 
 Prepares his stores of paper goods, 
 Kindly to make you coats and hoods, 
 Stampt with his name his arms his all; 
 That you his clients, on each stall 
 May shine above your brother iish, 
 Array'd in sheets, the pride or wish 
 Of fishmongers and dirty thieves, 
 Who wipe their noses on their sleeves." 
 
 P. W. v. 212. 
 
 Scarcely had Morns taken the rash step 
 of editing Du Moulin's abuse than, con- 
 scious of the offence which he had given 
 and hearing that Milton was preparing to 
 resent it, he endeavoured by every means* 
 which he could command, to avert or to 
 lighten the vengeance which was trembling 
 over his head. By some influence which he 
 
 story of the whipping is too long, and, though shaded with the. 
 veil of a learned language, too indelicate for me to extract: but it 
 may be found in Burman's Sylloge, torn. iii. 669, in a letter of 
 N. Heinsius to Isaac Vossius ; from which we have already quoted 
 the writer's defence of Milton's morality, and attack of his Latin 
 poetry. 
 
414 LIFE OF MILTON. 
 
 possessed, he prevailed on the Dutch em- 
 bassador to mediate for the intervention of 
 Cromwell's authority in his behalf; and, when 
 this object could not be obtained, to try, with 
 the power of the embassador's own request 
 and with Morus's assurances of his not being 
 the author of the injurious composition, to 
 soften the resentment and to withdraw the 
 pen from the hand of Milton. Nor were the 
 attempts of Morus to suppress this dreaded 
 publication confined to the period preceding 
 its birth, or to the assistance which he sought 
 from one of the diplomatic body. A letter 
 to him from Bourdeaux/ the French embas- 
 
 A curious letter (says Mr. Warton,) in Thurloe's State Pa- 
 pers, (vol. ii. p. 52p,) relating to this business, has been over- 
 looked, from Bourdeaux, the French Ambassador in England, to 
 Morus, Aug. 7, 1654. 
 
 " Sir, 
 
 At my arrival here, I found Milton's book so 
 public, that I perceived it was impossible to suppress it. This 
 man (Milton) hath been told that you were not the author of the 
 book, which he refuted ; to which he answered, that he was at 
 least assured that you had caused it to be imprinted: that you 
 had writ the preface, and he believes some of the verses that are 
 in it, and that, that is enough to justify him for setting upon 
 you. He doth also add, he is very angry that he did not know 
 several things, which he hath heard since, being far worse, as 
 he says, than any he put forth in his book; but he doth reserve 
 them for another, if so be you answer this. I am very sorry 
 for this quarrel which will have a long sequence, as I perceive j 
 for after you have answered this, you may be sure he will reply 
 
LIFE OF MILTON. 415 
 
 sador in London, preserved among Thurloe's 
 State Papers and first cited by Mr. Warton, 
 demonstrates the activity of his apprehensions 
 and his efforts at this interesting crisis of his 
 fame. But Milton was unmoved by any ap- 
 plications, and, contenting himself with say- 
 ing that nothing indecorous should escape 
 from him in the controversy, published the 
 work which is now before us ; and it was soon 
 in a circulation too vigorous to admit of its 
 being suppressed. Its effects on the public 
 opinion seem to have been great, and the de- 
 licate character of Morus gave way before 
 the weighty impression. He struggled how- 
 ever to support himself by a reply , x contain- 
 ing testimonies in favour of his moral charac- 
 ter from some colleges and universities, and 
 from the magistrates and synods of the towns 
 in which he had resided. This defence drew 
 another answer from Milton, in which he pro- 
 duced additional authorities for his former 
 
 with a more bloody one: for your adversary hath met with 
 somebody here, who hath told him strange stories of you." 
 (Milton's Juv. Poems by Warton, 2d ed. p. 486.) 
 
 x Morus's answer was entitled, "" Alexandra Mori Ecclesiastae 
 et sacrarum literarum Professoris, Fides Publica contra calum- 
 nias J. M." Milton called his reply to it, " Authoris pro se 
 Defensio contra Alexandrum Morum Ecclesiasten, Libelli fa- 
 mosi cui titulus, " Regii sanguinis clamor ad ccelum adversus 
 Particidas Anglicanos," authorem rcctc dictum. 
 
416 LIFE OF MILTOK. 
 
 assertions against his adversary. To this work 
 Moras was again tempted to publish a reply; 
 a short refutation of which by Milton termi- 
 nated the controversy. 
 
 During the course of it, the alarm and, 
 indeed the sufferings of Morus 7 had induced 
 
 y The caution of " audi alteram partem" is never more ne- 
 cessary to be observed than when we are reading, in the pages 
 of an able writer, the character of his adversary. The morals 
 of Morus were certainly not unimpeachable j but he passed 
 through life with numerous friends among the religious, the 
 learned, and the great. His preaching drew crowded audiences, 
 and obtained him a numerous following. Though in more than 
 one instance he was made the subject of a legal prosecution, 
 the result was uniformly in his favour; and his life, which was 
 never depressed by disgrace, was concluded by a religious and 
 exemplary death. He might therefore have been a little irre- 
 gular, and deviating, in consequence of human frailty, from the 
 strict line of Christian morality: but we cannot conceive that 
 his conduct was flagitious or stained with deep crimes. He 
 died at the house of the duchess of Rohan in Paris, in 1670. 
 By one of his contemporaries and friends, he is represented as 
 ambitions, restless, changeable, bold, and presumptuous: he is 
 stated also to have been a profound and extensive scholar, ac- 
 curately acquainted with the Greek, Hebrew and Arabic Ian. 
 guages. [See Bayle Article Morus.] 
 
 It may be remarked that in the letters of Sarrau, Morus is 
 more than once introduced under the name of Paris, in allusion, 
 as it must be inferred, to his amorous propensities, and his favour 
 with women. This frailty of his is generally made the subject 
 of allusion wherever he is mentioned in the correspondence of his 
 contemporary scholars : by whom also his intercourse with the 
 servant girl of Salmasius is related without any reserve or intima- 
 tion of doubt. The fact indeed, divested of the more atrocious 
 circumstances imputed to it, seems to be indisputable for it was 
 
LIFE OF MILTON. 41? 
 
 him to give up the author of that publication, 
 for which he had exposed himself to such 
 unpleasant consequences, and Du Moulin, 
 who was at that time in England, felt him- 
 self to be in danger: but he was saved, as he 
 says, by the pride of Milton, who, refusing to 
 acknowledge himself in an error and per- 
 sisting in his attack upon Morus, induced the 
 
 one of the causes of the quarrel between Salmasius and Morus; 
 and he was pressed by his former friend and patron to marry the 
 girl : but her character was much too light to admit of the idea 
 of her having been seduced, or of her being made, (in the vulgar 
 phrase,) an honest woman. Of the temper of this confidante of 
 Madame de Saumaise's, a whimsical instance is related by Vos- 
 sius, in a letter to N. Heinsius, dated from Amsterdam on the 
 24th of November J0'54. For the entertainment of my readers, 
 I will transcribe the whole passage : Lis ipsi (Salmasio) cum 
 Moro. Cupit enim ut is Anglicanam suam in uxorem ducat, 
 quod alter recusat. Verum isti duo boni amantes, qui nuper tarn 
 suaviter et amice oscula jungebant, valde mine sibi invicem sunt 
 infensi. Ante quatriduum siquidem, cum forte Maurus huic 
 nostrae occurrerat in vasta ista area, quae aedibus Salmasii adjaceb 
 statim capillitium ejus invasit, pluribusque adfecit verberibus : 
 neque eo contenta etiam fu^te in ilium ssevire conabatur, nisi 
 bonus ille socius in horreum confugisset super struicem quandam, 
 jactuque se vindicasset cespitum. Huic spectaculo non defuit 
 ingens, spectatorum numerus, qui ex vicinia passim eo confluxe- 
 rant. Vides quam omnes iis in aedibus sint yuyajxax^ara'pgyoj. 
 Facile hinc possis conjicere falsos fuisse rumores qui de subacta 
 Britannia! passim fuere sparsi, cum ilia potius Maumm sube- 
 gerit. Vel si verus sit rumor, adparet non satis fuisse subactam. 
 [Burman. Syllo. iii. 651.] 
 
 Our women, as it appears by this anecdote, can on some 
 occasions fight with the spirit of our men. 
 
 2 E 
 
418 LIFE OF MILTON 
 
 government to suffer the real author of the 
 offence to escape without notice. This how- 
 ever, is not an accurate statement of the case. 
 Early in the controversy Milton had been 
 assured that Morus was not the writer of the 
 " Regii sanguinis Clamor:" but Milton was 
 certain that Morus was the publisher of the 
 work and the writer of the dedication. Mil- 
 ton knew also that the name of Morus was 
 higher in the literary world than that of Du 
 Moulin ; and, regarding them both as joint 
 parties in a bond, he conceived himself to be 
 justified in calling upon the most responsible 
 of the two for the payment of his debt. 
 With respect to punishment, he would be 
 averse from inflicting on his adversary any 
 other than the brand of the pen ; and would 
 certainly be more inclined to conceal an ob- 
 noxious writer than to expose him to the 
 law. Du Moulin's triumph on his escape, 
 to whatever cause he might be indebted for 
 it, was certainly not inconsiderable, as the 
 passage inserted in the note will sufficiently 
 demonstrate. 2 
 
 z Spectabam interea tacitus, nee sine lento risu foetum meum 
 ad alienas fores expositum j et caecum et furiosum Miltonum 
 Andabatarum more pugnantem et agfo/jt-a^'ju-svoy, a quo ferirelur 
 et quern contra feriret ignarum. At Morus, tantae invidiae 
 impar, inregia causa frigere ccepit, & " Clamoris" authorem Mil- 
 
LIFE OF MILTON. 419 
 
 Having taken a general view of this con- 
 
 tono indicavit. Enimvero in sua ad Miltoni maledieta respon- 
 sione, duos adhibuit testes praecipuae apud perduelles fidei, qui 
 authorem probe nossent & rogati possent revelare. Unde sane 
 mini & capiti meo certissimum impendebat exitium. At mag- 
 nus ille justitiae vindex, cui & hanc operam & hoc caput 
 libens devoveram, per Miltoni superbiam salutem raeam asse- 
 ruit, ut ejus sapientise solenne est ex malis bona, ex tenebris 
 lucem elicere. Miltonus enim, qui plenis caninae eloquentiae 
 velis in Moram invectus fuerat, quique id ferine unicum De- 
 fensionis secundae suoe fecerat argumentum, ut Mori vitam 
 atque famam laceraret, adduci nunquam potuit, ut se tarn crasse 
 hallucinatum esse fateretur. Scilicet metuens ne caecitati ejus 
 populus illuderet, eumque compararent grammaticorum pueri 
 Catullo illi caeco apud Juvenalem, qui piscem Domitiano dona- 
 turn laudaturus. 
 
 plurima dixit 
 
 In laevum conversus, at illi dextra jacehat 
 Bellua. 
 
 Perseverante igitur Miltono totum illud periculosi in Ilegem 
 amoris crimen Moro impingere, non poterant caeteri perduelles 
 sine magna boni patroni sui injuria alium a Moro tanti criminis 
 reum peragere. Cumque Miltonus me salvum esse mallet quam 
 se ridiculum, hoc operze meas praemium tuli, ut Miltonum, quern 
 inclementius acceperam, haberem patronum, & capitis mei se- 
 dulum ints%x<r i n'i7?TJY. 1 ' 
 
 This extract is made from a kind of prefatory epistle, intended 
 by Du Moulin to accompany those furious iambics which he 
 vented against Milton, in their second edition with " the Regii 
 sanguinis Clamor." Having been omitted however, by some 
 accident or other, in its proper place, this exposition of the author's 
 dangers in the royal cause was subsequently published in a miscel- 
 laneous volume, printed at Cambridge in 16/0. Milton's blindness 
 supplies the generous Du Moulin with many occasions of exultation 
 and insult. The indifference or rather the pleasure, with which 
 this worthy divine beholds the punishmentj due to his own offence, 
 
420 LIFE OF MILTON. 
 
 troversy, in which Milton's last productions 
 are as distinguishable as his former ones for 
 spirit, vigour, and acuteness, it will be proper 
 for us to return to his " Second Defence;" 
 of which our notices have not yet been am- 
 ple in proportion to its demands. It is in- 
 deed filled with such interesting matter, that 
 our readers would have cause to censure us 
 if we were to pass over it with only common 
 attention. From those parts of it, which re- 
 late immediately to the author, we have more 
 than once had occasion to insert extracts in 
 our page, and of this portion of the work 
 we shall now content ourselves with tran- 
 scribing that passage which replies to the 
 reproaches of his antagonist on his blind- 
 inflicted on another, may be also worthy of remark. The senti- 
 ment of the Epicurean poet, 
 
 Suave etiam belli certamina raagna tueri 
 Per campos instrucra tua sine parte pericli : 
 
 was much less depraved than that discovered on this occasion by 
 Du Moulin: for the battle, which he thus delighted to con- 
 template without exposing himself to any participation of the 
 danger, was the result of his own voluntary act, and a battle 
 also in which his friend was suffering cruel wounds in his stead. 
 In this man's conduct we are disgusted with complicated base- 
 ness with the most selfish and mean cowardice, united with the 
 most egregious want of principle : and yet did his sycophantic 
 loyalty raise him to a high station in our church, and place him 
 in a stall of the metropolitan cathedral, when he scarcely merited 
 a stall in the stable of an inn. 
 
LIFE OF MILTON. 421 
 
 ness and the pretended deformity of his 
 person. 
 
 Veniamus nunc ad mea criminal estne 
 qnod in vit& aut moribus reprehendat? Certfe 
 nihil. Quid ergo? Quod nemo nisi immanis 
 ac barbarus fecisset, formam mihi ac cacci- 
 tateni objectat. 
 
 Monstrum horrendum, informe, ingens, cui lumen ademptum. 
 
 Nunqiiam exislimabam equidem fore, ut 
 de forma cum Cy elope certamen mihi esset; 
 verum statim se revocat. " Quanquam nee 
 ingens, quo nihil est exilius, exsanguius, con- 
 tractius." Tametsi virum nihil attinet de 
 formd dicere, tandem quando hie quoque 
 est unde gratias Deo again et mendaces re- 
 darguam, nfe quis (quod Hispanorum vulgus 
 de haerelicis, quos vocant, plus nimio sacer- 
 dotibus suis credulum opinatur) ne forte 
 cynocephaluin quempiam, aut rhinocerota 
 esse putet, dicam. Deformis quidem i ne- 
 mine, quod sciam, qui mod6 me vidit, sum 
 unquam habitus ; fonnosus n6cne, minus la- 
 boro; statur& fateor non sum procer^: sed 
 quae mediocri tamen quam parvee propior 
 sit; sed quid si parvA, quA et summi ssepe 
 turn pace turn bello viri fuere, quanquam 
 parva cur dicitur, quae ad virtutem satis 
 magna est? Sed neque exilis adinodum, eo 
 
LITE OF MILTON. 
 
 sane animo iisque viribus ut, cum aetas vi- 
 taeque ratio sic ferebat, nee ferrum tractare 
 nee slringere quotidiano usu exercitatus nes- 
 cirem; eo accinclus, ut plerumque eram, 
 cuivis vel multo robustiori exaequatum me 
 putabam, sccurus quid mihi quis injuriae vir 
 viro inferre posset. Idem hodie animus, 
 eaedem vires, oculi non iidem; ita tamen 
 extrinsecus illaesi, ita sine nube clari ac lu- 
 cicli, ut eorum qui acutissimum cernunt: in 
 hac sol urn parte, memet invito, simulator 
 sum. In vultu, quo " nihil exsanguius" esse 
 dixit, is manet etiamnum color exsangui et 
 pallenti plane contrarius, ut quadragenario 
 major vix sit cui non den is prope annis videar 
 natu minor: neque corpore contracto neque 
 cute. In' his ego si ull& ex parte .mention, 
 tnultis millibus popularium meorum, qui de 
 facie me norunt, exteris etiam non paucis, 
 ridiculus merito sim: sin iste in re minimi 
 necessaria tarn impudenter t gratuito men- 
 dax cornperietur, poteritis de reliquo eanclem 
 conjecturam facere. Alque haec de formfi 
 mea vel coactus : de tufi quanquam et con- 
 temptissimam accepi, et habilantis in te im- 
 probitatis atque malitiae vivam imagincm, 
 neque ego dicere neque ullus auclire curat. 
 Utinam de csecitate pariter liceret inhuma- 
 num hunc refellere adversarium: sed non 
 
LIFE OF MILTON. 423 
 
 licet; feramus igitur: non est miserum esse 
 caecum; rniserum est caecitatem non posse 
 ferre : quidni autern feram, quod unum- 
 quemque ita parare se oportet, ut si acci- 
 derit non segr ferat, quod et humanitus ac- 
 cidere cuivis mortalium, et praestantissimis 
 quibusdam atque optimis ornni memoria 
 viris accidisse sciam: sive illos memorem, 
 \elustatis ultimae priscos vates ac sapientis- 
 simos ; quorum calamitatem et dii, ut fertur, 
 rnult^ potioribus donis compensarunt, et ho- 
 mines eo honore affecerunt, ut ipsos incul- 
 pare maluerint deos, quam caecitatem illis cri- 
 mini dare. De augure TiresiA, quod traditur, 
 vulg6 notum. De Phineo sic cecinit Apol- 
 lonius in Argonaulicis: 
 
 - 'Oof Vow eV/Jwo KQL\ AioV 
 
 vow 
 
 Toy xa/ 01 yr^sts pzv ettl Jijyauoy / 
 'En ' g/.sr fySatycJuy yXwbfOV <f>ao$. 
 
 " Let us now come to the charge which 
 he brings against me. Is there any thing in 
 my life or my morals on which his censure 
 can fasten? Certainly nothing. What then 
 is his conduct? That of which no one but a 
 savage and a barbarian could be guilty, 
 he reproaches me with my form and my 
 blindness. In his page I am 
 
 " A monster horrid,, hideous, huge, arid blind." 
 
424 LIFE OF MILTON* 
 
 I never, indeed, imagined that, with respect 
 to person, there would be instituted any com- 
 petition between me and a cy clops. But my 
 accuser immediately corrects himself : " So 
 far, however* is he from huge, that a more 
 meagre, bloodless, diminutive animal can no 
 where be seen/' Although it be idle for a 
 man to speak of his own form, yet since, 
 even in this particular instance, I have cause 
 of thankfulness to God and the power of con- 
 iuting the falsehoods of my adversary, I will 
 not be silent on the subject, lest any person 
 should deem me, as the credulous populace of 
 Spain are induced by their priests to believe 
 those whom they call heretics, to be a kind 
 of rhinoceros or a monster with a dog's head. 
 By any man indeed, who has ever seen me, 
 I have never, to the best of my knowledge, 
 been considered as deformed whether as 
 handsome or not forms a less object of my 
 concern. My stature, I confess not to be 
 lofty; but it approaches more to the middle 
 height than to the low. If it were however 
 even low, I should in this respect only bo 
 confounded with many who have eminently 
 distinguished themselves in peace and in 
 war; and I know not why that human bod}' 
 should be called little which is sufficiently 
 
LIFE OF MILTON. 425 
 
 large for all the purposes of human usefulness 
 and perfection. When my age and the ha- 
 bits of my life would permit, I accustomed 
 myself to the daily exercise of the sword, atid 
 was not either so puny in body or so defi- 
 cient in courage as not to think myself, with 
 that weapon which I generally wore, to be 
 secure in the assault of any man, hand to 
 hand, how superior soever he might be to 
 me in muscular strength. The spirit and the 
 power, which I then possessed, continue un- 
 impaired to the present day; my eyes only 
 are not the same; and they are as unble- 
 mished in appearance, as lucid and free from 
 spot, as those which are endued with the 
 sharpest vision: in this instance alone, and 
 much against my own inclination, am I a 
 deceiver. My face, than which, as he says, 
 nothing is more bloodless, still retains, at the 
 age of more than forty, a colour the very re- 
 verse of pale, and such as induces almost 
 every one, who sees me, to consider me as 
 ten years younger than I am; neither is my 
 skin wrinkled, nor my body in any way 
 shrunk. If I should misrepresent any of 
 these circumstances, my falsehood must in- 
 stantly be detected by thousands of my own 
 countrymen, and by many foreigners, who 
 are acquainted with my person,, and to whose- 
 
426 LIFE OF MILTON. 
 
 ridicule and contempt I should justly be ex- 
 posed: it might then be fairly concluded that 
 he who, in an affair of no moment, could un- 
 necessarily be guilty of a gross and wanton 
 violation of truth, could not be deserving of 
 credit in any thing which he asserted. Thus 
 much have I been compelled to speak of 
 my own person; of your's, though I have 
 been informed that it is the most contemp- 
 tible and the most strongly expressive of the 
 dishonesty and malice which actuate it, I am 
 as little disposed to speak as others would be 
 to hear. 
 
 I wish that it were in my power, with the 
 same facility with which I have repelled his 
 other attacks, to refute the charge, which my 
 unfeeling adversary brings against me, of 
 blindness: but, alas! it is not in my power, 
 and I must consequently submit to it. It is 
 not, however, miserable to be blind: he only 
 is miserable who cannot acquiesce in his 
 blindness with fortitude. And why should 
 I repine at a calamity, which every man's 
 mind ought to be so prepared and disci- 
 plined as to be able, on the contingency of 
 its happening, to undergo with patience: a 
 calamity to which man by the condition of 
 his nature is liable; and which I know to 
 have been the lot of some of the greatest and 
 
LIFE OF MILTON. 
 
 the best of my species. Among those, on 
 whom it has fallen, I might reckon some of 
 the wisest of the bards of remote antiquity, 
 w r hose want of sight the Gods are said to 
 have compensated with extraordinary and far 
 more valuable endowments, and whose vir- 
 tues were so venerated that men would ra- 
 ther arraign the Gods themselves of injus- 
 tice than draw from the blindness of these 
 admirable mortals an argument of their guilt. 
 What is handed down to us respecting the 
 augur Tiresias is very commonly known. Of 
 Phineus, Apollonius in his Argonautics thus 
 sings 
 
 " Careless of Jove, in conscious virtue bold, 
 His daring lips Heaven's sacred mind unfold. 
 The God hence gave him years without decay; 
 But robb'd his eyeballs of the pleasing day." 
 
 But independently of its communications 
 respecting its author, by which it is princi- 
 pally recommended to us, the " Second De- 
 fence" exhibits many striking passages and 
 a variety of entertaining matter. It intro- 
 duces to our notice many of the writer's re- 
 publican friends, and, besides an animated 
 address to Cromwell, which it is our inten- 
 tion to extract, it presents us with an eloquent 
 eulogy on Christina the Queen of Sweden. 
 This extraordinary character was at this mo- 
 
428 LIFE OF MILTON. 
 
 I 
 
 ment renowned throughout Europe for her 
 liberality, her erudition, and her patronage 
 of the learned. 3 On the favour of Milton 
 
 a She was complimented in strains of as high panegyric as any 
 that is to be found in Milton, by almost all the scholars of her 
 time in Europe. In the letters oF Sarrau, or Sarravius, she is al- 
 ways mentioned in the most encomiastic terms, and is called the 
 great Christina and the greatest of queens. This learned and able 
 and upright man expresses envy for the happiness of Salmasius, 
 Vossius, and the other scholars who were at her court, and could thus 
 enjoy the charms of her conversation, and the sweet influence of 
 her smiles. f< O beatam Suediam," he says to Vossius in a letter 
 written from Paris Nov. 19, 1649, " tanta suarum fortunarum mo- 
 dcratrice ! O beatum Vossium ! O beatos omnes cui datum est 
 suavi ejus praesentia", conspectu, colloquio et gratia frui!" The 
 verse of Sarravius is not less flattering to Christina than his prose. 
 Of six distichs, which he wrote on a medal, representing the head 
 of this queen, as a Minerva, on one side, and on the other a me- 
 ridian sun, the two following are not the least full of com- 
 pliment, 
 
 Si coluissc voles Phccbum & coluisse Mir.crva'.nj 
 Tu cole Christinam Numen utrumque coles. 
 
 Sol radios cxnande tuos: eccc zcmula tcrris, 
 
 Christina aftulget lumine inocciduo. 
 
 Sarravii Epis. 286. 
 
 Christina was beloved by the people over whom she reigned j 
 and her abdication was opposed by the strong and affectionate 
 remonstrances of the Senate of Sweden. N. Heinsius, who was 
 then at Stockholm, records this circumstance which is so honour- 
 able to his royal patroness, in a letter written from that city at 
 the precise period in question. Nihil non egit universus regni 
 Senatus, ut ab hoc proposito Dominam avellerent: sed nimis alte 
 ejus ammo hzeret impressa scntentia vitae private instituendae, 
 quain ut tolli ant mutari ulla ratione possit. This letter which i 
 dated from Stockholm on the 29th of April l>54, is addressed ta 
 the writer's chief friend, Gronovius. Though by her abdication 
 all his hopes of royal favour were to be blighted, and he was 
 
LIFE OF MILTON. 
 
 the daughter of the great Adolphus had 
 
 likely also to sustain much pecuniary loss, N. Heinsius on this 
 and on every future occasion speaks of Christina with much affec- 
 tion and respect : and yet this is the woman whose unhappy 
 eccentricities Mr. Warton has delighted to expose, and to make 
 them, with his utmost power, the objects of our ridicule and dis- 
 gust. But she possessed sufficient taste to admire Milton's " De- 
 fence of the People of England;" an intercourse of praise had 
 intervened between her and this great adversary of royal des- 
 potism, and by Mr. Warton, and the writers of his character 
 and class, she was consequently to be degraded as much as pos- 
 sible, and her memory to be loaded with as much ignominy as 
 could be collected with assiduity from every quarter, and mer- 
 cilessly thrown on it. Her later conduct, as it must be lamented, 
 has supplied these posthumous enemies with too many material* 
 for their ungenerous purpose : but with respect to her principal 
 offence, in the estimation of these men, let us recollect that when 
 she praised Milton, she praised him who has since become the 
 subject of universal admiration; and that when Milton praised 
 her, he praised a Queen who possessed the affections of a happy 
 people; who extended the most liberal patronage to the learned, 
 and who was the theme of almost unbounded panegyric with all 
 the princes of European literature. The propriety of Milton's pane- 
 gyric of Christina is admitted by his adversary Morus; who car- 
 ries his admiration of her as far any of his contemporaries. Ad- 
 \erting to this part of Milton's " Second Defence," Morus says, 
 Hinc ambitiosa digressio in illam, quae non obiter dici debet, sin- 
 gularis exempli Reginam ; quae jam omnes omnium laudes merita, 
 consecuta, Jongissimeque supergressa j hoc unum non rneruit, 
 abs te laudari. [Alex. Mori Fides Publica, p. 60.] 
 
 With reference to the provocation under which it was written, 
 (.his reply of Morus is remarkably temperate and candid. As the 
 writer of the dedication and as the editor of the " Regii Sanguinis 
 Clamor," the offence of Morus was certainly great, and such as 
 to exempt him from our pity under his sufferings: but when we 
 compare him with Du Moulin, we must regard him as a liberal 
 and honourable antagonist. 
 
430 LIFE OF MILTON. 
 
 a particular claim in consequence of the 
 praise which, though a sovereign, she had 
 liberally given to his " Defence of the People 
 of England;'' and on all occasions he seems 
 anxious to requite her with the most prodigal 
 panegyric. Of this not only the passage, to 
 which I have now referred, is an instance, 
 but the verses also, which, at a period, as 
 we may conjecture, somewhat earlier than 
 the present, he had written under a portrait 
 of the Protector, transmitted as an official 
 compliment to the northern Potentate from 
 the fortunate usurper of England. To tran- 
 scribe the prose eulogy would detain us too 
 long from more interesting matters ; but the 
 poetic compliment, at once concise and 
 splendid, shall be inserted to gratify our 
 readers. 
 
 Bellipotens Virgo, septem regina trionum, 
 
 Christina ! Arctoi lucida Stella poli ! 
 Cernis quas merui dura sub casside rugas, 
 
 Utque senex armis impiger ora teroj 
 Invia fatorum dum per vestigia nitor, 
 
 Exequor et populi fortia jussa manu. 
 Ast tibi submittit frontem reverentior umbra: 
 
 Non sunt hi vultus regibus usque truces. b 
 
 h Some doubts have been raised about the author of these 
 verses, and a few, among whom is Mr. Warton, have assigned 
 them to the pen of Andrew Marvell. For my own part I cannot 
 find any reason to dispute Milton's title to them. To write 
 them was evidently within the province of the Latin Secretary, 
 
LITE OF MILTON". 431 
 
 Imperial Maid, great arbitress of war! 
 Queen of the pole! yourself its brightest star! 
 Christina! view this helmet-furrow'd brow; 
 This age, that arms have worn, but cannot bow; 
 As through the pathless wilds of fate I press; 
 And bear the people's purpose to success. 
 Yet see! to you this front submits its pride: 
 Thrones are not always by its frown defied. 
 
 Before we proceed to exhibit the address 
 to Cromwell, it will be proper to direct our 
 attention to the state of the British public at 
 this remarkable conjuncture. 
 
 That part of the Long Parliament, which 
 
 and, as they must have been composed before 1654, in the April 
 of which year Christina abdicated her throne, and as Marvell was 
 not associated in the office of Latin Secretary till 1607, they must 
 have been written when Milton sustained the duties of his place 
 without an assistant. Is it likely then, I will ask, that he 
 should solicit aid for the composing of eight verses, addressed 
 to a person who was manifestly a great object of his regard? 
 The notion entertained by Mr. Warton, that Milton, who was 
 perpetually conversant with the classics and with Latin compo- 
 sition, should by the disuse of a few years so far lose his faci- 
 lity in the constructing of Latin verse, as to be unable to write 
 it, strikes me as ludicrously absurd. The inference from their 
 being found in a posthumous publication of Marvcll's works is 
 surely of no consequence. A friend might certainly transcribe a 
 friend's verses, and place them by his own on the same subject, 
 without suspecting that he was thus bringing the author's just 
 claim to them into suspicion. Induced probably by the same 
 reasons which have influenced my opinion in this instance, Bishop 
 Newton, Dr. Birch, and the late ingenious editor of Paradise Re- 
 gained, Mr. Dunster, have concurred in considering these verses 
 as the property of Milton, 
 
432 LIFE OF MILTON. 
 
 had been permitted by Cromwell and the 
 fanatic army to continue its sittings, and 
 which, in derision, was called the Rump Par- 
 liament, had conducted the political vessel 
 with great ability and effect. It had lately 
 been augmented by many of its old mem- 
 bers who, having seceded in consequence of 
 their opposition to the trial of the king, were 
 now on their subscribing THE ENGAGEMENT* 
 re-admitted to their seats; and with their 
 presence they imparted a more imposing spe- 
 ciousness 6f aspect to the Legislative Assem- 
 bly. If some of its laws betrayed the se- 
 verity and narrowness of the presbyterian 
 priesthood, the greater number of them dis- 
 covered much political ability and were 
 formed on a wide view of the public interest. 
 The famous Navigation act, which has con- 
 tributed so essentially to our present naval 
 pre-eminence, was the offspring of its wis- 
 dom; and, both in the field and in the ca- 
 binet its talents for government were alike at- 
 tested by success. By its prudent manage- 
 
 e The form of this test, of the submission of the subject to 
 the existing government, was simple and concise: it was no- 
 thing more than a solemn promise " to be true and faithful to 
 the government established without king or house of peers." 
 The " Engagement" was substituted, on the death of the king, 
 for the famous " Solemn League and Covenant/' 
 
LIFE Or MILTOK. 433 
 
 nient of the revenues of the state, it possessed 
 the means not only of paying its army and the 
 servants of its civil establishment with punc- 
 tuality, but of liberally rewarding their me- 
 rits. If it were entitled however to the re- 
 spect, it was either unable or not solicitous 
 to conciliate the affection of the nation. 
 Many of its measures had, in a high degree, 
 been reprehensible and offensive. Besides 
 the murder of the king, which its vote had 
 ostensibly induced and of which it offered 
 the pretended sanction, its frequent appoint- 
 ment of High Courts of Justice, and its con- 
 sequent disuse of Juries, for the trial of state* 
 criminals, could not fail to excite the popular 
 odium, whoever were the victims of these ir- 
 regular tribunals; while the shameless viva- 
 ciousness with which it refused to remit its 
 grasp of political existence, without any re- 
 ference to its just source of being in the 
 people, laid its private ambition open to the 
 most common observation, and exposed the 
 futility of its pretensions to public virtue. The 
 execution of Mr. Love, a leading presbyterian 
 clergyman, who, till the ascendency of the 
 Independents and the death of the king, had 
 actively promoted and had suffered in the 
 republican cause, largely contributed to the 
 unpopularity of this exhausted and self- 
 2 F 
 
434 LIFE OF MILTON. 
 
 dependent parliament. The crime, of which 
 he stood convicted, was that of having corre- 
 sponded with the exiled king and conspired 
 against the commonwealth: but so great had 
 been his merits to the parliamentary party, 
 and so strong was the interest now exerted 
 to save him, that the unrelenting severity, 
 which conducted him to the block, was the 
 subject of general reprobation. 
 
 While it was thus declining in the favour 
 of the nation, this usurping assembly beheld 
 with increasing apprehension the power of 
 its army, and the ascendency of its victorious 
 general. 
 
 However open to censure might have been 
 the measures of the parliament, those of the 
 army were fully as culpable and far more 
 extraordinary. Its conduct indeed seems 
 to be without precedent or consequent, stand- 
 ing insulated and alone in the annals of the 
 world. Well paid, highly disciplined, en- 
 thusiastic in the cause of liberty, under the 
 strong controll of religious principle, it aban- 
 dons its principle, betrays its cause, and revolts 
 against the power for whom it had assumed 
 arms, by whose able management it had been 
 cherished, and by whose superior counsels it 
 had been directed to victory. But the in- 
 tolerance of the Presbyterians was become 
 
LIFE OF MILTON. 435 
 
 the leading object of resentment and of terror 
 to the sectarists, who formed the body of 
 the army ; and the religious phrenzy of these 
 heated spirits was insusceptible of any long- 
 views of policy, or of any violent and self-aban- 
 doning system of patriotism. If the influence 
 of such enlightened and liberal politicians as 
 Selden and Whitelocke had prevailed in the 
 Parliament over that of the Assembly of Di- 
 vines, the concession of an unlimited tolera- 
 tion would have preserved the army from 
 those alarms, which alone shook it from its 
 duty and, converting it immediately to the 
 overthrow of the government, made it even- 
 tually subservient to its own ruin. 
 
 Aware of the advantages which would 
 probably result from it to his own cause, 
 Cromwell carefully watched and fomented 
 the general agitation. In the diminished po- 
 pularity of the Parliament, in the mutual 
 jealousies of that assembly and the army, 
 in the prevailing lassitude and discontent of 
 the harassed people he saw and welcomed 
 the means of his own personal aggrandise- 
 ment. He had now reached a situation con- 
 tiguous to that greatness which, only a short 
 time before, had perhaps been removed from 
 his most romantic and visionary expectation. 
 Unlike to the first Caesar, who. aspiring ta 
 
436 LITE OF MILTON. 
 
 empire from the commencement of his poli- 
 tical career, seems to have advanced by re- 
 gular and measured steps to the possession 
 of his object, Cromwell, floating loosely on 
 the tide of events, was brought near to a 
 throne which he had the boldness to seize 
 and the ability to retain. Enthusiasm, which 
 at first was the great moving spring of his 
 conduct, became in the succeeding stages of 
 his progress the instrument with which he 
 worked; and from being the dupe of his own 
 feelings, he grew to be the controller of those 
 of other men. He never entirely indeed 
 ceased to be the enthusiast: but, ambition 
 for a time obtaining the ascendency in his 
 bosom over the religious passion, he united 
 in himself at last, with an inconsistency 
 not uncommon in our poor nature, the op- 
 posite characters of the zealot and the im- 
 postor. When he performed his devotions 
 with the common soldiers, and thus conci- 
 liating their affections essentially promoted 
 his own purposes and influence, he was not, 
 as I am satisfied, wholly insincere; but had 
 persuaded himself that he could thus allow- 
 ably convert an act of religious duty into a 
 mean of worldly interest. No man per- 
 haps ever possessed in a higher degree that 
 rapid and searching glance which can pene- 
 
LIFE OF MILTON. 4S7 
 
 trate, and that dexterity which can shape to 
 their proper uses human character and its 
 multiform varieties. For the attainment of 
 ends far different from those proposed to him- 
 self by the holy Apostle, Cromwell was " all 
 things to all men:" and could act with equal 
 facility, on the demand of the immediate oc- 
 casion, the commander or the buffoon. 
 
 By the resignation of Fairfax, averse from 
 marching against the Presbyterians in Scot- 
 land, he was now advanced to the head of 
 the army arid, being freed by the death of 
 Ireton d from the stern and inflexible repub- 
 licanism of that popular and potent leader, 
 he saw no insuperable obstacle between his 
 hand and the sceptre of England. When he 
 returned from the scenes of his triumph at 
 Dunbar and Worcester, the sovereign power 
 was in fact in his possession; and the nation 
 looked up to the Captain General, for with 
 this high title he was now decorated, as to 
 the arbiter of its fortunes and the destined 
 restorer of its tranquillity. His promises 
 were specious and alluring. Of religious to- 
 
 d Ireton died of the plague at Limerick, on the 2/th of Nov. 
 1 65 1 . This seems to be the accurate date : but some writers have 
 placed his death on the 26th of the preceding September. For 
 his steady republicanism, he is likened by Gilbert Burnet to 
 Cassius, 
 
438 LIFE OF MILTON. 
 
 leralion he was the sincere friend, and he 
 earnestly professed his desire of convening a 
 free parliament, and of settling the disturbed 
 community either under an equal common- 
 wealth or a limited monarchy. His dis- 
 mission of the Long Parliament, 6 though ef- 
 fected with some circumstances of violence 
 and contumely, does not seem to have been 
 felt by the nation as an obnoxious act. It 
 appeared to be justified by the principle of 
 self-defence, for, at the crisis to which things 
 had been urged, either the General or the 
 Parliament must have fallen; and to put a 
 period to an usurpation seemed to be allow- 
 able, by whatever hand the deed was ac- 
 complished. His electing a new legislature, 
 by his own authority f and without any ap- 
 peal to the people, could not be a measure 
 of the same dubious unpopularity: in its sup- 
 port however might be pretended the dis- 
 traction of the times, and the consequent 
 
 e On the IQth of April, ]6.53. 
 
 f In this instance certainly the people had nothing to do with 
 the laws lut to oley them', and I am rather surprised that the 
 Prelate, (Dr. Horsley at that time bishop of Rochester,) who mcide 
 this assertion, did not advance in its support the example now 
 before us, of a parliament elected by one man, and that man a 
 victorious general. This parliament was assembled by a summons 
 addressed in the name of the Captain General, &c. to the parti- 
 cular person who was to be a member of the legislature. 
 
LIFE OF MILTON. 439 
 
 plea of political expediency. The puny Par- 
 liament, which was thus assembled, and 
 which, from the name of one of its leading- 
 members, 8 was called Barebone's Parliament, 
 began its sittings on the fourth of July, h but 
 after acting for a few months, as the instru- 
 ment of Cromwell and with evident incom- 
 petency to the task of government, it re- 
 signed its power 1 into the hands of its poli- 
 tical creator; and the Captain General, with 
 his military council, found himself the master 
 of a kind of derelict community. 
 
 In this emergency the Council of Offi- 
 cers, pretending for their deed a species of 
 parliamentary delegation, undertook to pro- 
 vide for the settlement of the public by plac- 
 ing the government in the hands of their 
 leader Cromwell, with the title of Lord Pro- 
 tector of the Commonwealth of England. A 
 provision was made for the convention of a 
 triennial parliament, in the constitution of 
 which some regard was discovered for the 
 people's rights, and the Protector was in- 
 stalled in his high office with great solemnity 
 and magnificence on the 16'th of December 
 1653. 
 
 It was immediately after this remarkable 
 
 * A leather-seller of Fleet Street. h 1653. 
 
 5 On the 13th of Dec. 1653. 
 
440 LIFE OF MILTON. 
 
 occurrence that Milton, as it is probable, 
 composed that part of his c; Second Defence/' 
 which I am now about to transcribe. He 
 could not be insensible to those egregious 
 mockeries M^hich had been practised on the 
 people; but it was natural for him not 
 to abandon without extreme reluctance the 
 hopes, which he had so long and so fondly 
 cherished, of the Protector's rectitude of in- 
 tention ; and he seems desirous of urging 
 this extraordinary man to a just and a ge- 
 nerous use of power, with ever} 7 motive which 
 could be suggested by wise counsel or by 
 eloquent panegyric. Milton certainly ap- 
 proaches the master of England with ele- 
 vated sentiments, and, even in his praises, 
 discovers the equality of an erect and inde- 
 pendent spirit. This the reader of the fol- 
 lowing animated apostrophe, which forms a 
 part only, though the far larger part of the 
 whole masterly address, will not be permitted 
 to doubt. My extract is preceded by a ra- 
 pid and striking enumeration of those great 
 events which had distinguished the two or 
 three preceding years, the recovery of Ire- 
 land by one decisive blow; the subjugation 
 of Scotland, which had been vainly attempted 
 by the English monarchs during a period of 
 eight hundred years; the great and crowning 
 
LIFE OP MILTON. 441 
 
 victory at Worcester; the dismission of the 
 Long Parliament: the meeting and the sub- 
 sequent abdication of the succeeding Legis- 
 lature. The deserted commonwealth is then 
 represented as leaning for support on Crom- 
 well alone; who by that best of rights, ac- 
 knowledged by reason and derived from God, 
 the right of superior talents and virtue, is 
 in possession of the supreme power. The 
 relative merits of the several titles of honour 
 are afterwards discussed, and the magnani- 
 mity of Cromwell, evinced by his rejection 
 of the name of king, is the topic of praise 
 with which my extract commences, 
 
 k Tu igitur, Cromuelle, magnitudine ilia 
 anirni macte esto; te enim decet: tu patriae 
 liberator, libertatis auctor, custosque idem ct 
 
 k It is remarkable that the magnanimity and high tone of this 
 address of Milton's to the great Protector, struck Morus, and was 
 objected by him to his adversary as an evidence of overweening 
 pride and an imperious spirit: and yet has this very address been 
 adduced in onr days by the enemies of our author to prove his sy- 
 cophancy and the mean accommodation of his principles! ! Let 
 us attend to the observations made by Morus on the subject.. 
 " Quae quidem omnia spiritus tibi tarn altos induerunt, ut prox- 
 imus a prime censeri concupiveris., adroque celsissimo Crornucllo 
 celsior apparcas interdum ; quem sine ulld hojwris pr<rfatinnc fa- 
 miliaritcr appettas, quem specie laudantis doces, cui leges dictas, 
 litulos circujnscj'ibis, munia prcescril-is, concilia suggeris, et, si 
 secus fecerit, mlnas ingeris. Illi arma et imperium concedis, in- 
 genium tibi togamque vindicas. [Alex. Mori Fides Publia, 
 P- 73, 73.] 
 
442 LIFE OF MILTON. 
 
 conservator, neque graviorem personam ne- 
 que augustiorem suscipere potes aliam; qui 
 non modo regum res gestas, sed heroum quo- 
 que nostrorum fabulas factis exsuperasti. Co- 
 gita seepius, quam caram rem ab qum cara 
 parente tua, libertatem a patria tibi com- 
 mendatam atque concreditam, apud te de- 
 positam habes; quod ab electissimis gentis 
 universae viris ilia mod6 expectabat, id nunc 
 a te uno expectat, per te unum consequi 
 sperat. Reverere tan tain de te expectationem, 
 spem patriae de te unicam; reverere vultus et 
 vulnera tot fortium virorum, quotquot, te 
 duce, pro libertate tarn strenue decertarunt; 
 manes etiam eorum qui in ipso certamine 
 occubuerunt: reverere exterarum quoque ci- 
 vitatum existimationem de nobis atque ser- 
 mones; quantas res de libertate nostra tarn 
 fortiter part^ r de nostra republic^ tarn glo- 
 riose exorta, sibi polliceantur: quae si tarn 
 cit6 quasi aborta evanuerit, profecto nihil 
 aequfe dedecorosum huic genti atque puden- 
 dum fuerit : teipsum denique reverere, ut 
 pro qua adipiscenda libertate tot aerumnas 
 pertulisti, tot pericula adiisti, earn adeptus, 
 violatam per te aut ulla in parte imminutam 
 aliis ne sinas esse. Profect6 tu ipse liber 
 sine nobis esse non potes; sic enim natura 
 comparatum est, ut qui aliorum libertatem 
 
LIFE OF MILTON. 445 
 
 occupat, suam ipse primus omnium amittat; 
 seque primum omnium intelligat servire: at- 
 que id quidem non injurhL At vero, si pa- 
 tronus ipse libertatis et quasi tutelaris deus, 
 si is, quo nemo justior, nemo sanctior est 
 habitus, nemo vir melior, quam vindicavit 
 ipse earn postmodern invaserit, id non ipsi 
 tanttim, sed universe virtulis ac pietatis ra- 
 tioni perniciosum ac lethale propemodum sit 
 necesse est: ipsa honestas, ipsa virtus decox- 
 isse videbitur, religionis angusta fides, exis- 
 timatio perexigua in posterum erit, quo gra- 
 vius generi humano vulnus, post illud pri- 
 mum, infligi nullum poterit. Onus longfe 
 gravissimum suscepisli, quod te penittis ex- 
 plorabit, totum te atque intimum perscruta- 
 bitur, atque ostendet quid tibi animi, quid 
 viriuvn insit, quid ponderis; vivatne in te 
 vere ilia pietas, fides, justitia, animique mo- 
 deratio, ob quas evectum te prae caeteris Dei 
 numine ad hanc summam dignitatem credi- 
 mus. Tres nationes validissimas consilio re- 
 gere, populos ab institutis pravis ad melio- 
 rem quam antehac frugem ac disci plinam 
 velle perducere, remotissimas in paries sol- 
 licitam mentem cogitationesque immittere, 
 vigilare, praevidere, nullum laborem recu- 
 sare, nulla voluptatura blandimenta non sper- 
 nere, divitiarum atque potentiae ostentatio- 
 
444 LIFE OF MILTON. 
 
 nem fugere, haec sunt ilia ardua prae quibus 
 bellutn ludus est; haec te ventilabunt atque 
 excutient, haec virum poscunt divino fultum 
 auxilio, divino penfe colloquio monitum at- 
 que edoctum. Quae tu et plura saepenu- 
 merd quin tecuin reputes atque anirno re- 
 volvas, non dubito: uti et illud, quibus po- 
 tissimum queas modis et ilia maxima perfi- 
 cere, et libertatem salvam nobis reddere et 
 auctiorem. Quod meo quidera judicio, hand 
 alia ratione rectius effeceris,, quani si primum 
 quos laborum atque discriminum cornites 
 habuisti, eosdem, quod facis, conciliorum 
 socios cum prim is adhibueris; viros sanfe et 
 modestissimos, et integerrimos, et fortissimos; 
 quos tot mortes conspecte, tot strages ante 
 ora editae, non ad crudelitatem aut duritiem 
 animi, sed ad justitiam et numinis reveren- 
 tiam et humanae sortis miserationem, ad 
 libertatem denique eo acrius retinendam eru- 
 dierunt, quo gravioribus ejus causa periculis 
 ipsi suum caput objecere. Non illi quidem 
 ex colluvione vulgi aut advenarum, non 
 turba collectitia, sed melioris plerique notoe 
 cives, genere vel nobili vel non inhonesto, 
 fortunis vel amplis vel mediocribus; quid si 
 ips4 paupertate aliqui commendatiores? quos 
 non praeda convocavit, sed difficillima tern- 
 pora, rebus maxime dubiis saepe adversis, ad 
 
LIFE OF MILTON. 445 
 
 liberandam tyrannide rempublicam excit&- 
 runt; non in tuto aut curia sermones inter se 
 atque sententias tanti\m, seel manus cum hoste 
 conserere paratos. Quod nisi spes semper in- 
 finitas atque inanes persequemur, in quibus 
 tandem mortalium sisti aut confidi possit 
 non video, si his horumque similibus fides 
 non habebitur. Quorum fidelitatis certissi- 
 mum pignus et indubitatum habemus, qudd 
 pro republic^, vel mortem oppetere, si ita sors 
 tulisset, non recus&rint; pietatis, qu6d implo- 
 rato suppliciter Dei auxilio, totiesque ab eo 
 insigniter adjuti, ^ quo auxilium petere ei- 
 dem gloriam tribuere omnem rerum prospere 
 gestarum consueverint; justitiae, quod etiam 
 regcm in judicium adduxerint, damnato parci 
 noluerint: moderationis, qucjd et earn experti 
 jam diu sumus, et, quam ipsi sibi peperere 
 pacem, si eorundem per injuriam rumpatur, 
 quae mala inde oritura sunt ipsi primi sint 
 persensuri, ipsi prima vulnera suis corpori- 
 bus excepturi, deque suis omnibus fortunis 
 atque ornamentis feliciter jam partis rursus 
 dimicaturi; fortitudinis denique, qu^d nulli 
 unquam libertatem feliciiis aut forties recu- 
 peraverint; ne arbitremur ullos alios posse 
 diligcntius conservare. 1 
 
 .' P, W. v. 259- 
 
446 LIFE OF MILTON. 
 
 " Proceed then, O Cromwell; and exhi- 
 bit, under every circumstance, the same lof- 
 tiness of mind; for it well becomes you and 
 is consistent with your greatness. The de- 
 liverer, as you are, of your country, the au- 
 thor, the guardian, the preserver of her liberty, 
 you can assume no additional character more 
 important or more august:" 1 since not only 
 the actions of our kings, but the fabled ex- 
 ploits of our heroes are overcome by your 
 achievements. Reflect then frequently, (how 
 dear alike the trust, and the parent from 
 whom you have received it!) that to your 
 hands your country has commended and 
 confided her freedom; that, what she lately 
 expected from her choicest representatives, 
 she now hopes exclusively from you. O re- 
 verence this high confidence, this hope of 
 your country relying exclusively upon your- 
 self: reverence the countenances and the 
 wounds of those brave men, who have so 
 
 m It may be proper to remark that the allusion in this place 
 is npt to Cromwell's rejection of the crown, when offered to him 
 by the Parliament; for this event happened in 1(55(5, more than 
 two years after the period now immediately in question j but to 
 the result of a consultation on the subject, just before the dis- 
 mission of the Long Parliament, between Cromwell and some 
 of the principal men of the nation whom he considered as 
 friendly to his views; on which occasion, Whitelocke strongly 
 dissuaded him from assuming the title of king. 
 
LIFE OF MILTON. 447 
 
 nobly struggled for liberty under your au- 
 spices, as well as the manes of those who 
 have fallen in the conflict: reverence also 
 the opinion and the discourse of foreign com- 
 munities; their lofty anticipations with re- 
 spect to our freedom so valiantly obtained 
 to our republic so gloriously established, of 
 which the speedy extinction would involve 
 us in the deepest and the most unexampled 
 infamy: reverence, finally, yourself! and 
 suffer not that liberty, for the attainment of 
 which you have encountered so many perils 
 and have endured so many hardships, to sus- 
 tain any violation from your own hands, or any 
 from those of others. Without our freedom, 
 in fact, you cannot yourself be free: for it is 
 justly ordained by nature that he who in- 
 vades the liberty of others shall in the very 
 outset lose his own, and be the first to feel 
 that servitude which he has induced. But if 
 the very patron, the tutelary Deity as it were 
 of freedom; if the man, most eminent for 
 justice, and sanctity, and general excellence 
 should assail that liberty which he has as- 
 serted, the issue must necessarily be perni- 
 cious, if not fatal, not only to the aggressor 
 but, to the entire system and interests of 
 piety herself: honour and virtue would in- 
 deed appear to be empty names; the credit 
 
448 LIFE OF MILTON. 
 
 and character of religion would decline and 
 perish under a wound more deep than any 
 which, since the first transgression, had been 
 inflicted on the race of man. 
 
 You have engaged in a most arduous 
 undertaking, which will search you to the 
 quick ; which will scrutinize you through and 
 through ; which will bring to the severest test 
 your spirit, your energy, your stability; which 
 will ascertain whether you are really actuated 
 by that living piety, and honour, and equity, 
 and moderation which seem, with the favour 
 of God, to have raised you to your present 
 high dignity. To rule w r ith your counsels 
 three mighty realms, in the place of their 
 erroneous institutions to introduce a sounder 
 system of doctrine and of discipline, to per- 
 vade their remotest provinces with unremit- 
 ting attention and anxiety, vigilance and fore- 
 sight; to decline no labours, to yield to no 
 blandishments of pleasure, to spurn the 
 pageantries of wealth and of power these; 
 are difficulties in comparison with which 
 those of war are the mere levities of play: 
 these will sift and winnow you ; these demand 
 a man sustained by the divine assistance, tu- 
 tored and instructed almost by a personal 
 communication with his God. These and 
 more than these you often, as I doubt not, 
 
LIFE OF MILTON. 449 
 
 revolve in your mind and make the subjects 
 of your deepest meditation, greatly solicitous 
 how most happily they may be achieved, and 
 your country's freedom be strengthened and 
 secured : and these objects you cannot, iu 
 my judgment, otherwise effect than by ad- 
 mitting, as you do, to an intimate share of 
 your counsels those men, who have already 
 participated your toils and your dangers; 
 men of the utmost moderation, integrity, and 
 valour ; not rendered savage or austere by 
 the sight of so much bloodshed and of so 
 many forms of death; but inclined to justice, 
 to the reverence of the Deity, to a sympathy 
 with human suffering, and animated for the 
 preservation of liberty with a zeal strengthened 
 by the hazards which for its sake they have 
 encountered ; men not raked together from 
 the dregs of our own or of a foreign popu- 
 lace not a band of mercenary adventurers, 
 but men chiefly of superior condition; in 
 extraction, noble or reputable; with respect 
 to property, considerable or competent, or 
 in some instances deriving a stronger claim 
 to our regard, even from their poverty itself; 
 men, not convened by the lust of plunder, 
 but, in times of extreme difficulty, amid cir- 
 cumstances generally doubtful and often al- 
 most desperate, excited to vindicate their 
 
 2 G 
 
450 LIFE OF MILTON. 
 
 country from oppression ; and prompt, not 
 only in the safety of the senate-house to wage 
 the war of words, but to join battle with the 
 enemy on the field. If we will then renounce 
 the idleness of never-ending and fallacious 
 expectation, I see not in whom, if not in 
 these and in such as these, we can place re- 
 liance or trust. Of their FIDELITY we have 
 the surest and most indisputable proof in the 
 readiness which they have discovered even 
 to die, if it had been their lot, in the cause 
 of their country; of their PIETY, in the de- 
 votion with which, having repeatedly and suc- 
 cessfully implored the protection of Heaven, 
 they uniformly ascribed the glory to Him 
 from whom they had solicited the victory; of 
 their JUSTICE, in not exempting even their 
 king from trial or from execution; of their 
 MODERATION, in our own experience and in 
 the certainty that, if their violence should 
 disturb the peace which they have esta- 
 blished, they would themselves be the first to 
 feel the resulting mischiefs, themselves would 
 receive the first wounds in their own bodies, 
 while they were again doomed to struggle for 
 all their fortunes and honours now happily 
 secured; of their FORTITUDE, lastly, in that 
 none ever recovered their liberty with more 
 bravery or effect, to give us the assurance 
 
ttJFE OF MILTON 451 
 
 that none will ever watch over it with more 
 solicitous attention and care/' 
 
 I cannot prevail on myself to leave this 
 interesting production before I present to my 
 readers the striking paragraphs with which 
 it concludes. 
 
 Ad me quod attinet, quocunque res re- 
 dierit, quam ego operarn meam maximk 
 ex usu reipublicse futuram judicavi, hand 
 gravatim certfe et, ut spero, haud frustra im- 
 pendi; meaque arma pro libertate, non so- 
 Wun ante fores extuli, sed etiam iis ita latk 
 sum usus, ut factorum minimfc vulgariurn jus 
 atque ratio et apud nostros et apud exteros 
 explicala, defensa, atque bonis certfe omnibus 
 probata, et ad meorum civium summam lau- 
 dem et posterorum ad exemplurn pr^eclare 
 constet. Si postrema primis non satis re* 
 sponderint, ipsi viderint; ergo quae eximia, 
 quae excelsa, quae omni laude propfe majora 
 fuere, iis testimonium, prope dixerim monu- 
 rnentum perhibui haud cito interiturum; et 
 si aliud nihil, certfe fidem meam liberavi. 
 Quemadmodum autem poeta is qui epicus 
 vocatur, si quis pau!6 accuratior minime- 
 que abnormis est, quern heroem versibus ca- 
 nendurn sibi proponit, ejus non vitam om- 
 nem ? sed unam fere vitae actionem, Achillis 
 puti ad Trojam, vel Ulyssis red i turn, vel 
 
452 LIFE OF MILTON. 
 
 jEneae in Italiam adventum ornaudum sibi 
 sumit, reliquas praetermittit; ita mihi quoque 
 vel ad officium vel ad excusationem sails 
 fuerit unam saltern popularium meorum he- 
 roice rem geslam exornasse; reliqua praete- 
 reo omnia universi populi praestare quis 
 possit? Si post tarn fortia facinora fbedius de- 
 liqueritis, si quid vobis indigrium commise- 
 ritis, loquetur perfecto posteritas, et judi- 
 cium feret; jacta strenue fundamenta fuisse, 
 praeclara initia, immo plusquam initia; sed 
 qui opus ex-aedificarent, qui fastigium impo- 
 nerent, non sine commotione quadain animi 
 desiderabit; tantis incoeptis, tantis virtu tibus 
 non adfuisse perseverantiam dolebit ; ingen- 
 tem gloriee segetem, et maximarum rerum 
 gerendarum materiam .praebitam videbit, sed 
 materiae defuisse viros: non defuisse qui mo- 
 nere recta, hortari, incitare, qui egregie turn 
 facta turn qni iecisscnt condecorare, et 
 yicluris in omne aevum celebrare laudibus 
 potuerit. 
 
 " For myself, whatever may be the final 
 result, such efforts as in my own judgment 
 were the most likely to be beneficial R to the 
 commonwealth, I have made without re- 
 luctance, though not, as I trust, without ef- 
 
 P. W. v. 266. 
 
LIFE OF MILTON. 453 
 
 feet: I have wielded my weapons for liberty 
 not only in our domestic scene, but on a far 
 more extensive theatre; that the justice and 
 the principle of our extraordinary actions, 
 explained and vindicated both at home and 
 abroad and confirmed in the general appro- 
 bation of the good, might be unquestionably 
 established, as well for the honour of my com- 
 patriots as for precedents to posterity. That 
 the conclusion prove not unworthy of such 
 a commencement, -be it my countrymen's to 
 provide: it has been mine to deliver a testi- 
 mony, I had almost said to erect a monument 
 which will not soon deca}% to deeds of great- 
 ness and of glory almost transcending human 
 panegyric; and, if I have accomplished no- 
 thing further, I have assuredly discharged 
 the whole of my engagement. As the bard 
 however who is denominated Epic, if he 
 confine his work a little within certain canons 
 of composition, proposes to himself for a 
 subject of poetical embellishment not the 
 whole life of his hero, but some single action, 
 (such as the wrath of Achilles, the return of 
 Ulysses, or the arrival in Italy of ./Eneas,) 
 and takes no notice of the rest of his con- 
 duct; so will it suffice, either to form my vin- 
 dication or to satisfy my duty, that I have 
 
454 LIFE OF MILTON. 
 
 recorded in heroic narrative one only of my 
 fellow-citizen's achievements. The rest I omit; 
 for who can declare all the great actions of a 
 whole people? If, after such valiant exploits, 
 you fall into gross delinquency, and perpe- 
 trate any thing unworthy of yourselves, pos 
 terity will not fail to discuss and to pronounce 
 sentence on the disgraceful deed. The foun- 
 dation they will allow indeed to have been 
 firmly laid, and the first (nay more than the 
 first) parts of the superstructure to have been 
 erected with success ; but with anguish they 
 will regret that there were none found to carry 
 it forward to completion; that such an enter- 
 prise and such virtues were not crowned by 
 perseverance; that a rich harvest of glory and 
 abundant materials for heroic achievement 
 were prepared; but that men were wanting 
 to the illustrious opportunity while there 
 wanted not a man to instruct, to urge, to sti^ 
 mulate to action, a man who could call fame 
 as well upon the acts as the actors, and could 
 spread their celebrity and their names over 
 lands and seas to the admiration of all future 
 
 ages" 
 
 This work, with a compliment from its au-r 
 thor, was presented to the Protector by An- 
 drew Marvell; whos^ letter to his friend on 
 
LIFE OF MILTON. 455 
 
 the occasion was first published by Doctor 
 Birch, and will be found in the note. 
 
 HONOURED SIR, 
 
 " I DID not satisfy myself in the account I 
 gave you of presenting your book to my lord, although it seemed 
 to me that I wrote to you all, which the messenger's speedy 
 return the same night from Eton would permit me : and I 
 perceive that by reason of that haste I did not give you satis- 
 faction neither, concerning the delivery of your letter at the 
 same time. Be pleased therefore to pardon me, and know 
 that I tendered them both together. But my lord read not the 
 letter while I was with himj which I attributed to our dis- 
 patch, and some other business tending thereto, which I there- 
 fore wished ill to, so far as it hindered an affair much better 
 and of greater importance, I mean that of reading your letter. 
 And to tell you truly mine own imagination, I thought that he 
 would not open it while 1 was there, because he might suspect 
 that I, delivering it just upon my departure, might have brought 
 in it some second proposition, like to that which you had be- 
 fore made to him by your letter to my advantage. However, I 
 assure myself that he has since read it, and you that he did then 
 witness all respect to your person, and as much satisfaction 
 concerning your work as could be expected from so cursory a 
 review, and so sudden an account as he could then have of it 
 from me. 
 
 Mr. Oxenbridge, at his return from London, will, I know, 
 give you thanks for his book, as I do with all acknowledgment 
 and humility for that you have sent me. I shall now study it 
 even to the getting it by heart, esteeming it, according to my 
 poor judgment (which yet I wish were so right in all things else) 
 as the most compendious scale, for so much, to the height of 
 the Roman eloquence. When I consider how equally it turns, 
 and rises with so many figures, it seems to me a Trajan's column, 
 in whose winding ascent we see embossed the several monuments 
 of your learned victories: and Salmasius and Morus make up as 
 great a triumph as that of Decebahis, whom too, for ought I 
 
456 LIFE OP MILTON. 
 
 Colonel Overton, of whom the writer speaks 
 with so much interest, was one of those 
 steady republicans whom Cromwell, unable 
 to conciliate, was under the necessity of 
 securing. After a previous imprisonment 
 in the tower, Overton was confined during 
 the Protector's life in the island of Jersey; 
 and obtained his liberty from the Parliament, 
 a short time only before the Restoration. 
 Whether any further notice was taken by 
 Cromwell of Milton's present we are not in- 
 formed: but we may be assured that he was 
 not on the list of the Protector's peculiar 
 friends, and that the Secretary would easily 
 be reconciled to the consequences of exclu- 
 sion from his employer's favour by the con- 
 sciousness of commanding his respect. 
 
 With the " Second Defence of the People 
 
 know, you shall have forced, as Trajan the other, to make them- 
 selves away out of a just desperation. 
 
 1 have an affectionate curiosity to know what becomes of 
 colonel Overton's business, and am exceeding glad to think 
 that Mr. Skinner has got near you; the happiness which I at 
 the same time congratulate to him, and envy, there being none 
 who doth, if I may so say, more jealously honour you than, 
 
 Honoured Sir, 
 
 Your most affectionate humble servant, 
 Eton, June 2, 1654, ANDREW MARVELL. 
 
 For my most honoured friend, John Milton, Esq. Secretary for the 
 Foreign Affairs,, at his House in Petty France, Westminster. 
 
LIFE OF MILTON 457 
 
 of England" and the two subsequent replies 
 to Morns, Milton closed his great controver- 
 sial labours ; and endeavoured among his 
 studies to retire from the mortification and 
 disappointment, which he necessarily must 
 have felt in consequence of the fuller exhi- 
 bition of his hero's perfidy and despotism. 
 He continued, indeed to serve his country, 
 in the character of her Latin secretary, on 
 the same principle, as we may fairly con- 
 clude, which induced Blake to extend her 
 dominion upon the ocean, and Sir Matthew 
 Hale to be the interpreter of her laws at 
 the head of the Common Pleas : but his 
 disapprobation of the present state of things 
 is evident from more than one of his fa- 
 miliar letters; and he seems to have ac- 
 quiesced under the existing evil only as it 
 was irremediable, or as it was temporary* 
 or as it appeared to be inferior in degree 
 to that of the return of the royalists into 
 power with their exiled and exasperated 
 monarch. 
 
 He was now engaged in the prosecution 
 of three great works, a history of England, 
 a thesaurus of the Latin language on the 
 plan of that by Stephens, and an epic poem. 
 Of the first of these literary labours we have 
 already said so much, that little is now left 
 
458 LIFE OF MILTON". 
 
 to be remarked, unless it be that, previous 
 to its publication in l6?0, it was mutilated 
 by the barbarian caprice of the licenser, and 
 deprived of one of its most spirited and 
 brilliant passages. In 1681, this reprobated 
 part was separately printed, and it was af- 
 terwards re-admitted to its proper place in 
 that edition of the author's prose- works, which 
 was published in 1738. As it obtains a kind 
 of peculiar interest from its rejection by the 
 licenser, and as it offers to us the observations 
 of a great contemporary mind on the con- 
 duct of the Long Parliament and the Assem- 
 bly of Divines, a portion of it shall be laid 
 before our readers, to whom it will at the 
 same time supply a specimen of the author's 
 historic composition. 
 
 " For a parliament being called, to re- 
 dress many things as it was thought, the 
 people with great courage, and expectation 
 to be eased of what discontented them, chose 
 to their behoof in parliament such as they 
 thought best affected to the public good, and 
 some indeed men of wisdom and integrity; 
 the rest, (to be sure the greater part,) whom 
 wealth or ample possessions, or bold and ac- 
 tive ambition (rather than merit) had com- 
 mended to the same place. 
 
 But when once the superficial zeal and 
 
LIFE OF MILTON. 459 
 
 popular fumes that acted their new magi- 
 stracy were cooled and spent in them, strait 
 every one betook himself (setting the com- 
 monwealth behind, his private ends before) 
 to do as his own profit or ambition led him. 
 Then was justice delayed, and soon after de- 
 nied : spite and favour determined all : 
 hence faction, thence treachery, both at 
 home and in the field: every where wrong, 
 and oppression: foul and horrid deeds com- 
 mitted daily, or maintained, in secret or in 
 open. Some who had been called from shops 
 and warehouses, without other merit, to sit 
 in supreme councils and committees, (as their 
 breeding was) fell to huckster the common- 
 wealth. Others did thereafter as men could 
 sooth and humour them best; so he who 
 would give most, or under covert of hy- 
 pocritical zeal insinuate basest, enjoyed un- 
 worthily the rewards of learning and fide- 
 lity; or escaped the punishment of his crimes 
 and misdeeds. Their votes and ordinances, 
 which men looked should have contained the 
 repealing of bad laws and the immediate 
 constitution of better, resounded wilh nothing 
 else but new impositions, taxes, excises; 
 yearly, monthly, weekly. Not to reckon the 
 offices, gifts, and preferments bestowed and 
 shared among themselves: they in the mean 
 
460 LIFE OF MILTON. 
 
 while, who were ever faithfullest to this cause, 
 and freely aided them in person or with 
 their substance, when they durst not compel 
 either, slighted and bereaved after of their 
 just debts by greedy sequestrations, were 
 tossed up and down after miserable attend- 
 ance from one committee to another with 
 petitions in their hands, yet either missed the 
 obtaining of their suit, or though it were at 
 length granted, (mere shame and reason oft- 
 times extorting from them at least a show of 
 justice,) yet by their sequestrators and sub- 
 committees abroad, men for the most part of 
 insatiable hands and noted disloyalty, those 
 orders were commonly disobeyed: which for 
 certain durst not have been, without secret 
 compliance, if not compact with some supe- 
 riors able to bear them out. Thus were their 
 friends confiscate in their enemies, while they 
 forfeited their debtors to the state, as they 
 called it, but indeed to the ravening seizure 
 of innumerable thieves in office ; yet were 
 withal no less burdened in all extraordinary 
 assessments and oppressions, than those whom 
 they took to be disaffected: nor were we hap- 
 pier creditors to what we called the state, 
 than to them who were sepuestered as the 
 state's enemies. 
 
 For that faith which ought to have been 
 
LIFE OF MILTON, 46i 
 
 kept as sacred and inviolable as any thing 
 holy, 6 the Public Faith/ after infinite sums 
 received, and all the wealth of the church 
 not better employed, but swallowed up into 
 a private gulf, was not ere long ashamed 
 to confess bankrupt. And now beside the 
 sweetness of bribery and other gain, with 
 the love of rule, their own guiltiness and the 
 dreaded name of Just Account, which the 
 people had long called for, discovered plainly 
 that there were of their own number, who 
 secretly contrived and fomented those trou- 
 bles and combustions in the land, which 
 openly they sat to remedy ; and would con- 
 tinually find such work, as should keep them 
 from being ever brought to that Terrible 
 Stand of laying down their authority for lack 
 of new business, or not drawing it out to any 
 length of time, though upon the ruin of a 
 whole nation. 
 
 And if the state were in 'this plight, re- 
 ligion was not in much better; to reform 
 which, a certain number of divines were 
 called, neither chosen by any rule or custom 
 ecclesiastical, nor eminent for either piety or 
 knowledge above others left out ; only as 
 each member of parliament in his private 
 fancy thought fit, so elected one by one. 
 The most part of them were such as had 
 
462 LIFE OF MILTON. 
 
 preached and cried down, with great show 
 of zeal, the avarice and pluralities of bishops 
 and prelates; that one cure of souls was a 
 full employment for one spiritual pastor how 
 able soever, if not a charge rather above hu- 
 man strength. Yet these conscientious men 
 (ere any part of the work done for which 
 they came together, and that on the public 
 salary) wanted not boldness, to the ignominy 
 and scandal of their pastor-like profession 
 and especially of their boasted reformation, 
 to seize into their hands, or not unwillingly 
 to accept (besides one, sometimes two or 
 more of the best livings) collegiate master- 
 ships in the universities, rich lectures in the 
 city, setting sail to all winds that might blow 
 gain into their covetous bosoms: by which 
 means these great rebukers of non-residence, 
 among so many distant cures, were not 
 ashamed to be seen so quickly pluralists and 
 non-residents themselves, to a fearful con- 
 demnation doubtless by their own mouths. 
 And yet the main doctrine, for which they 
 took such pay and insisted upon with more 
 vehemence than gospel, was but to tell us in 
 effect that their doctrine was worth nothing, 
 and the spiritual power of their ministry 
 less available than bodily compulsion; per- 
 suading the magistrate to use it, as a stronger 
 
 
LITE OF MILTON. 463 
 
 means to subdue and bring in conscience, 
 than evangelical persuasion: distrusting the 
 virtue of their own spiritual weapons, which 
 were given them, if they be rightly called, 
 with full warrant of sufficiency to pull down 
 all thoughts and imaginations that exalt 
 themselves against God. But while they 
 taught compulsion without convincement, 
 which long before they complained of as 
 executed unchristianly against themselves; 
 these intents are clear to have been no better 
 than antichristian: setting up a spiritual ty- 
 ranny by a secular power, to the advancing 
 of their own authority above the magistrate, 
 whom they would have made their execu- 
 tioner to punish church-delinquencies, where- 
 of civil laws have no cognisance. 
 
 And well did their disciples manifest 
 themselves to be no better principled than 
 their teachers; trusted with committeeships 
 and other gainful offices, upon their com- 
 mendations for zealous and (as they sticked 
 not to term them) godly men; but executing 
 their places, like children of the devil, un- 
 faithfully, unjustly, unmercifully, and, where 
 not corruptly, stupidly. So that between 
 them, the teachers, and these, the disciples, 
 there hath not been a more ignominious and 
 mortal wound to faith, to piety, to the work 
 
464 LIFE OF MILTON. 
 
 of reformation, nor more cause of blasphem- 
 ing given to the enemies of God and truth, 
 since the first preaching of reformation." 
 
 The attention of Milton to his Latin the- 
 saurus was not productive of any very pro- 
 fitable result. The materials, which he had 
 amassed, occupied in manuscript the bulk 
 of three large folios: but they were left by 
 him in too indigested a state to be fit for 
 publication: it is said, however, that they 
 were advantageously employed by the edi- 
 tors of the Cambridge dictionary/ to whom 
 they were probably given by Philips. This 
 work, for the execution of which his state of 
 blindness must have peculiarly disqualified 
 him, seems to have formed, till the hour of 
 his death, a part of that change of literary 
 exercise in which he delighted ; and if we re- 
 flect upon the circumstance, we must cer- 
 tainly be astonished at the mind, which with 
 all its energies could thus instantaneously 
 pass from invention to compilation, from the 
 luxurious sports of fancy to the dry and 
 barren drudgeries of verbal recollection. 
 
 Of the third object, on which our au- 
 thor's powers were at this period exerted, his 
 immortal epic, I shall forbear to speak till 
 
 i 1 Published in 4to in 1693. 
 
 
LIFE OF MILTON. 465 
 
 the time of its completion and publication. 
 Some great production in the highest region 
 of poetry had been, as we have observed, in 
 his contemplation from the commencement 
 nearly of his literary life. The idea accom- 
 panied him to Italy, where with a more de- 
 fined object it acquired a more certain shape 
 from the example of Tasso, and the con- 
 versation of Tasso's friend, the accomplished 
 Marquis of Villa. From this moment it 
 seems to have been immoveably fastened in 
 his mind; and, though for a season oppressed 
 and overwhelmed by the incumbent duties of 
 controversy, its root was full of life and preg- 
 nant with vigorous vegetation. At the time, 
 of which we are speaking, (the end of 1655 
 and the beginning of 1656) the mighty work, 
 according to Philips, was seriously under- 
 taken; and it is curious to reflect on the stea- 
 diness of its growth under a complication of 
 adverse circumstances; and to see it, like 
 a pine on the rocks of Norway, ascending to 
 its majestic elevation beneath the inclemency 
 of a dreary sky, and assailed in the same mo- 
 ment by the fury of the ocean at its feet, and 
 the power of the tempest above its head. 
 
 In this variety of strong and effective in- 
 tellectual exertion did Milton pass his hours 
 during the usurpation of Cromwell, discharg- 
 
 2 H 
 
46(3 LIFE OF MILTON". 
 
 irig of course the duties of his secretaryship, 
 but neither engaging in controversy nor ad- 
 dressing the public on any topic of political dis- 
 quisition. In 1655, he composed, in a strain 
 of peculiar elegance, the manifesto issued by 
 the Protector to justify his war with Spain: 
 and in 1657, Andrew Marvel!, a man of whom 
 I shall say more in a note, 9 was associated in 
 
 i Andrew Marvell is a character of too much importance, in 
 the history of Milton and in that of man, to be passed over with- 
 out some particular attention. He was born in 1620, in the town 
 of Hull, of which his father was the minister. Making an early 
 discovery of talents and a rapid proficiency in learning, he was 
 sent at the age of thirteen to Trinity College, Cambridge. On 
 acquiring a considerable increase of fortune by the liberality of 
 A Lady, in attending on whose only daughter his father had 
 lost his life as he was crossing the Humber, young Marvell tra- 
 velled through various parts of Europe, visited Rome, and re- 
 sided for some time at Constantinople in the character of Secre- 
 tary to the British Embassy. Soon after his return to England 
 in 1653 he was appointed by Cromwell to be tutor to a Mr. 
 Dutton, and in 1657 was associated, by the same powerful 
 patron, in the office of Latin Secretary with Milton. In the 
 parliament, which was summoned just before the event of the 
 Restoration, he was elected as the representative of his native 
 town, and so entirely did his public conduct obtain the appro- 
 bation of his constituents that they continued him, with a liberal 
 pension, in his seat to the hour of his death. Though it does 
 not appear that he possessed the power of eloquence, or spoke 
 frequently in the house, it is certain that his influence in Par- 
 liament was considerable j and that he preserved the respect of 
 the Court, even when he was the most determined in his hosti- 
 lity to its measures. Charles indeed is said to have been 
 much pleased with his conversation, and to have used every 
 mean, though without effect, to gain him to the Court party, 
 
LIFE Olf MILTON. 46? 
 
 the office of Latin Secretary; and that friend- 
 
 or to relax the vigour of his opposition. Of his writings in 
 prose and verse, which are numerous and respectable, one of 
 the most considerable is, " The Rehearsal transprosed," a sati- 
 rical piece, named after the Duke of Buckingham's famous 
 Rehearsal, and directed against the noted Dr. Parker, whose 
 flexibility eventually raised him to the Episcopal bench, and 
 who, with ability and learning, but faithless in friendship, and 
 
 destitute of principle, might be regarded as the H of his 
 
 age. The poetry of Marvell is strong, manly, and full of thought, 
 and his lines, which were prefixed to the second edition of the 
 Paradise Lost, are as reputable to his judgment and poetic ta- 
 lent, as they are to his friendship. He died in 1678 in his 
 58th year, when his constitution was yet entire and vigorous. 
 From this circumstance, and from his obnoxiousness to the 
 Court, as a member of the country party, his death has been 
 imputed to the effect of poison. He was buried in the church 
 of St. Giles in the Fields: and on his tomb, with the strictest 
 adherence to truth, might have been inscribed," " Here lies a 
 truly valuable man, the scholar, the wit, the firm and zealous 
 friend, the disinterested, and incorruptible patriot." 
 
 I am tempted to lengthen this long note by adding to it, from 
 the Biographia Britannica,* an interesting narrative respecting 
 the death of this estimable man's father. 
 
 f< Andrew Marvell, M. A., was vicar of Kingston-upon-HulI, 
 in Yorkshire, in the 17th century. Some time before the be- 
 ginning of the civil wars, he was unfortunately drowned in 
 crossing the Humber. On that shore of the Humber opposite 
 to Kingston, lived a Lady, whose virtue -and good sense re- 
 commended her to the esteem of Mr. Marvell, as his piety and 
 understanding obliged her to take a particular notice of him. 
 This lady had an only daughter, whose duty, ingenuity, de- 
 votion, and general exemplary behaviour, had endeared her to 
 all who knew her, and rendered her the darling of her mother ; 
 so that, she could scarce bear to let her child be ever out of her 
 sight. 
 
 * Article, Marvell. 
 
468 LIFE OF MILTON. 
 
 ship between him and Milton was ratified, 
 
 Mr. Marvell, desirous to increase the amity between the two 
 families, asked her to let her beloved daughter come over to 
 Kingston, to stand god-mother to one of his children, which 
 she consented to. The young lady came over to Kingston, and 
 the ceremony was performed. The next day, when she came 
 down to the water side in order to return home, she found the 
 wind very high and the water so rough ns to render the pas- 
 sage dangerous, so that the waterman earnestly dissuaded her 
 from all thoughts of crossing : but she, who from her birth had 
 never wilfully given her mother a moment's uneasiness, and 
 who knew how miserable she would be until she saw her 
 again, insisted on going, notwithstanding all that could be 
 urged by the waterman or Mr. Marvell, who earnestly intreated 
 her to return to his house and to wait for better weather. 
 
 Mr. Marvell, finding her resolutely bent to venture her life 
 rather than run the risque of disobliging a fond parent, thought 
 himself obliged, in honour and conscience, to share the danger 
 with herj and accordingly having persuaded some waterman 
 to attempt the passage, they both got into the boat. Just as 
 they put off, Mr. Marvell threw his gold headed cane on shore 
 to some friends who attended at the water-side, telling them, 
 that, as he could not suffer the young lady to go alone and as 
 he apprehended the consequence might be fatal, if he perished, 
 he desired them to give that cane to his son, and bid him re- 
 member his father. Thus he, armed with innocence, arid his 
 fair charge, with filial duty and affection, set forward to meet 
 their inevitable fate: the boat was overset, and they were lost. 
 
 " The lady, whose excessive fondness had plunged her 
 daughter and friend into this terrible condition, went the same 
 afternoon into her garden, and seated herself in an arbour, from 
 whence she could view the water; and while with no small 
 anxiety she beheld the tempestuous state it was in, she saw (or 
 rather thought she saw) a most lovely boy with flaxen hair 
 come into the garden , who, making up directly to her, said, 
 " Madam, your daughter is safe now." The Lady, greatly 
 surprised, said, <f My pretty dear, how didst thou know any 
 thing of my daughter?" Then bidding him stay, she arose 
 
LIFE OF MILTON. 469 
 
 which, beginning at a somewhat earlier pe- 
 riod, was terminated only with their lives. 
 
 In 1658, Milton published, with the title 
 of, " The Cabinet Council" a manuscript of 
 Sir Walter Ralegh's, consisting of aphorisms 
 on the art of government : but his mind was 
 now to be called from these amusements of 
 the press to attentions of a very afflicting and 
 embarrassing nature. 
 
 In the September of this year, amid 
 the wretchedness of apprehension and re- 
 morse, the Protector finished his splendid 
 but criminal career; supplying one awful 
 and monitory example more, to the many 
 which had already been exhibited to the 
 world, (if human passion could be brought 
 to attend to the lesson of example,) of the 
 impotence of ambition with her richest re- 
 wards to compensate the forfeiture of inte- 
 grity. The confusions, which ensued upon 
 
 and went into the house for a pretty piece of new money to re- 
 ward him for his care: but returning into the garden, the child 
 was gone, and no tidings of him could be heard. This gave her 
 some suspicion of her misfortune j which was soon after con- 
 firmed, with the additional aggravation that her friend was in- 
 volved in the same mischief, and of course his family great suf- 
 ferers j she having lost her pleasure, they their support : and 
 thinking herself bound by every tie to make all the reparation 
 in her power,, she sent for the son of her late friend, the cele- 
 brated Andrew Marvell, charged herself with the expence of 
 his future education, and at her death left him her fortune." 
 
470 LIFE OF MILTON. 
 
 liis death, induced the people to regret the 
 loss even of an usurper, whose vigorous au- 
 thority had suspended those dissensions of 
 which they were now the prey, and had con- 
 trolled the licentiousness of the army by whose 
 caprices they were now insulted and op- 
 pressed. After a reign of less than nine months, 
 Richard Cromwell descended, in the conscious 
 security of innocence/ and with a magnani- 
 mity which could disdain greatness when as- 
 sociated with guilt, from his high and giddy 
 eminence to the safe level of a private sta- 
 tion; and the council of officers, headed by 
 Desborough and Fleetwood who had imme- 
 diately contributed to Richard's abdication, 
 summoned the relics of the Long Parliament 
 to re-assume the guidance of the Common- 
 wealth. A part of this renowned assembly, 
 which still legally existed, convened on this in- 
 vitation; and, soon displaying its accustomed 
 energy and talent, became in a short time 
 the object of just alarm to its military tyrants, 
 and again suffered a forcible interruption of 
 
 r Richard Cromwell might have supported himself on his 
 Protectoral throne if he would have consented to the assassi- 
 nation of Desborough and Fleetwood; or would have accepted 
 in time the military assistance offered to him by his brother 
 Henry, the amiable and popular governor of Ireland. The 
 letters of Henry Cromwell, on this occasion, discover a clear 
 head and an excellent heart. 
 
LIFE OF MILTON. 4?1 
 
 its sittings. On this last excess of the army, 
 under the influence of men, destitute alike of 
 ability arid of public feeling and equally in- 
 capable of providing for their own interests or 
 for those of the community, the nation expe- 
 rienced a species of anarchy, and fell into the 
 extreme of degradation under a military des- 
 potism. The Presbyterians, discontented since 
 the triumph of the Independents, but crushed 
 beneath the weighty sceptre of Oliver and 
 acquiescing in the succession of his son, now 
 openly avowed their disaifection to the rul- 
 ing powers and united, themselves heartily 
 with the Royalists. 
 
 This extraordinary confusion and conflict 
 of parties opened a field to Monk, who had 
 been placed by Cromwell at the head of the 
 forces in Scotland and was now the gover- 
 nor of that kingdom, for the display of his 
 inconstancy, his cunning, and his perfidy. 
 Peculiarly favoured by his situation, and so- 
 licited by the Presbyterians, the People, and 
 the Parliament for aid against an insolent 
 soldiery, who, like the blind giant of classical 
 fable, possessed brutal power without the 
 vision requisite to divert it from self-destroy- 
 ing exertion, this wavering and narrow- 
 minded man, with mean talents but with 
 deep dissimulation, was enabled to betray 
 
LIFE OF MILTON. 
 
 all who confided in him, to abandon his old 
 associates to the butchery of legal vengeance, 
 and with a fearful accumulation of perjury 
 on his head to surrender the nation, without 
 a single stipulation in its favour, to the do- 
 minion of a master in whom voluptuousness 
 and cruelty were confounded in a disgusting 
 embrace. By every intelligent and reflecting 
 man the restoration of the monarchy of Eng- 
 land must be hailed as a most auspicious event: 
 but it may be questioned whether the uncon- 
 ditional restoration of it, and this alone was 
 properly the act of Monk, can be regarded as 
 a benefit either to the prince or to the peo- 
 ple ; -to the former, whom it allured to those 
 excesses which induced the final expulsion 
 of his family from the throne; or to the lat- 
 ter, whom it immediately exposed to the 
 evils of an injurious reign, and eventually 
 subjected to the necessity of asserting, with 
 the blood of two domestic wars, their right 
 to civil and religious liberty. 
 
 While these strange transactions were 
 passing in the space between the Protector's 
 death and the return of Charles, the mind of 
 Milton must necessarily have been agitated 
 with very severe inquietudes. Under the 
 usurpation of Cromwell he had seen the 
 structure of liberty, which his ardent imagi- 
 
 
LIFE OF MILTON. 4?3 
 
 nation had erected, dissolve like a vision into 
 air, and leave not a vestige to intimate the 
 place where the fanciful edifice had stood. 
 In this had case however there were circum- 
 stances to appease and console him. At home, 
 religious freedom had been admitted in its 
 most ample expansion; and, with the name 
 of a commonwealth, many of the privileges 
 of free men had been respected and per- 
 mitted to remain. The personal character 
 of the usurper had also in some measure 
 covered the deformity of the usurpation. 
 Magnificent in public, as the representative 
 of a great nation, in private he was simple 
 and plain. Impatient of those questions 
 which pressed upon his own title, he ad- 
 mitted all others to unlimited discussion; and 
 while the most equal justice was distributed 
 under his auspices through all the ranks of 
 the community, his vigorous arm controlled 
 Europe and seated Britain as her queen 
 upon the throne. His generous policy that 
 protected the reformed churches against their 
 catholic oppressors, (one exertion of which, 
 for the Protestants of Piedmont, has already 
 been mentioned,) was alone sufficient to soften 
 the hostility, if it could not entirely engage 
 the affection of Milton. 
 
 On the death of Oliver the usurper was 
 
474 LITE Or MILTON. 
 
 no more, but the usurpation survived; and 
 for the vigour and liberality which he had 
 been accustomed to respect, Milton saw no- 
 thing but the weakness and the selfishness 
 of faction, trampling upon the rights and the 
 patience of the nation, and precipitating it- 
 self, with the cause which it professed to 
 support, into irretrievable ruin. 
 
 He was not however wanting to the com- 
 munity at this crisis of confusion and alarm. 
 Apprehensive of returning intolerance from 
 the increasing influence of the Presbyterians, 
 he published two treatises, one called, " A 
 Treatise of the Civil Power in Ecclesiastical 
 Causes;" and the other, " Considerations 
 touching the likeliest means to remove Hire- 
 lings out of the Church/' In the first of 
 these works, which he addressed to the Par- 
 liament convened by Richard Cromwell, he 
 asserts the entire liberty of conscience, and 
 with arguments drawn from the sacred writ- 
 ings he demonstrates that in matters merely of 
 religion the interference of the magistrate is 
 unlawful: in the second, which he inscribed 
 to the Long Parliament on its revival by the 
 army, he allows the propriety of a mainte- 
 nance for tire Christian minister, but, ar- 
 guing against the divine right as well as the 
 political expediency of tithes, he is of opi- 
 
LIFE OF MILTON. 4?5 
 
 nion that the pastor ought to be supported 
 by the contributions of his own immediate 
 flock. To the politician, who contemplates 
 in this country the advantages of a church 
 establishment and sees it in union with the 
 most perfect toleration, or to the philoso- 
 pher, who discovers in the weakness of hu- 
 man nature the necessity of present mo- 
 tives to awaken exertion and to stimulate 
 attention, the plan recommended by our au- 
 thor would appear to be visionary or perni- 
 cious; and we should not hesitate to condemn 
 it, if its practicability and its inoffensive conse- 
 quence were not incontrovertibly established 
 by the testimony of America. From Hud- 
 son's Bay, with the small interruption of Ca- 
 nada, to the Mississippi, this immense con- 
 tinent beholds the religion of Jesus, uncon- 
 nected with the patronage of government, 
 subsisting in independent yet friendly com- 
 munities, breathing that universal charity 
 which constitutes its vital spirit, and offering, 
 with its distinct yet blending tones, one grand 
 combination of harmony to the ear of its 
 Heavenly Father. 
 
 Milton, as a political writer, had now 
 been so long withdrawn from the public ob- 
 servation, and had so long been reposing 
 under the shade of the Protectoral govern- 
 
LIFE OF MILTON. 
 
 merit, that his republican admirers began to 
 suspect him of alienation from their cause, 
 and of hesitation in the race on which he had 
 entered with so much spirit and effect. Their 
 opinion of his consistency was restored how- 
 ever by the publications of which we have 
 been speaking; and they now acknowledged 
 him to be still the Milton of former times. In 
 a letter, addressed to him on the subject of 
 the first of these treatises by a Mr. Wall of 
 Causham, dated May 29, 1659, that gentle- 
 man says, " I confess I have even in my pri- 
 vacy in the country oft had thoughts of you, 
 and that with much respect for your friend- 
 ship to truth in your early years and in bad 
 times. But I was uncertain whether your 
 relation to the Court, (though I think that a 
 commonwealth was more friendly to you 
 than a court,) had not clouded your former 
 light: but your last book resolved that 
 doubt." 5 
 
 As the disorders and the disgraces of the 
 year increased, while the earnest protestations 
 of Monk and the existence of a Parliament, 
 in which the royalists formed an inconsider- 
 
 8 Transcribed from the original by Mr. Owen of Rochdale 
 in Lancashire. Birch's Life of Milton, p. xlii. The whole 
 letter is inserted in P. W. ii. 388, and the reader will find it to be 
 deserving of his notice. 
 
LIFE OF MILTON. 477 
 
 able party, still supported the hopes of the 
 republicans against the visible and strong 
 current of the national opinion in favour of 
 monarchy, the solicitous apprehension of 
 Milton for the general result, and his indig- 
 nation at the outrages of the army are disco- 
 vered in a letter to a friend, dated October 
 the 20th, 1659; which with another paper, 
 addressed, as it is believed, to Monk and en- 
 titled " The present Means and brief Deli- 
 neation of a free Commonwealth," was first 
 published by Toland, and is well worthy of 
 the reader's attention. 
 
 After an interval of a few months, he in- 
 scribed to Monk, who now seemed to com- 
 mand the issue of things, " The ready and 
 easy way to establish a free Common wealth ;" 
 a piece intended rather to expose the evils 
 necessarily consequent to the nation's relapse 
 into its old vassalage under kings, and to de- 
 monstrate the preference of a republican to 
 a monarchical government, than to propose 
 any just model of a popular constitution. In 
 this work, as well as in his " Brief Delinea- 
 tion/' he shows himself to be fearful of an 
 unqualified appeal to the people; and deems 
 them incapable of determining with wisdom 
 for their own interests. " Another way/' as 
 he says, " will be to qualify and refine elec- 
 
478 LIFE OF MILTON. 
 
 tions;' not committing all to the noise and 
 shouting of a rude multitude; but permitting 
 only those of them who are rightly qualified 
 to nominate as many as they will, and out 
 of that number others of better breeding to 
 choose a less number more judiciously, till ? 
 after a third or fourth sifting and refining of 
 exactest choice, they only be left chosen, who 
 are the due number and seem by most voices 
 the worthiest." With the strong preposses- 
 sion of a party-zealot, he deserts his general 
 principle for the attainment of his particular 
 object; and thinks that his own opinions 
 ought to be enforced in opposition to those 
 of the majority of the nation. Aware also 
 that a frequent change of the governing body 
 might be attended with inconvenience and 
 possible danger, he decides against frequent 
 parliaments, and in favour of a permanent 
 Council. Into such inconsistencies was he 
 betrayed by his animosity to monarchy, and 
 his bigotted attachment to whatever carried 
 the name of a republic. With all its defects 
 however, and raised indisputably on a false 
 foundation, this treatise exhibits many strik- 
 ing truths and places them in strong atti- 
 tudes. Its description of the extravagancy 
 
 1 P. W. iii.416. 
 
LIFE OF MILTON. 479 
 
 and corruption of a court has been cited by 
 Toland; and I shall transcribe some of its 
 passages, which must have been read with 
 interest by the nation when suffering the dis- 
 graceful reign of Charles, and when subse- 
 quently indebted to a generous foreigner 
 and to a small part of its own aristocracy 
 for a restitution of its rights. But the people 
 had now been wronged beyond their patience, 
 and the persuasion of an angel's tongue would 
 have failed in the attempt to bring their pas- 
 sions into any subordination to prudence. 
 
 " But admit, that monarchy of itself may 
 be convenient to some nations; yet to us, who 
 have thrown it out and received it back 
 again, it cannot but prove pernicious. For 
 kings to come, never forgetting their former 
 ejection, will be sure to fortify and arm them- 
 selves sufficiently for the future against all 
 such attempts hereafter from the people ; 
 who shall be then so narrowly watched and 
 kept so low, that though they would never 
 so fain, and at the same rate of their blood 
 and treasure, they never shall be able to re- 
 gain what they now have purchased and may 
 enjoy, or to free themselves from any yoke 
 imposed upon them: nor will they dare to 
 go about it; utterly disheartened for the fu- 
 ture, if these their highest attempts prove 
 
480 LIFE OF MTLTOX. 
 
 unsuccessful; which will be the triumph of 
 all tyrants hereafter over any people that 
 shall resist oppression; and their song will 
 then be, to others, how sped the rebellious 
 English? to our posterity, how sped the re- 
 bels your fathers?'' 
 
 " They had their longing, but with this 
 testimony of God's wrath; " Ye shall cry 
 out in that day because of your King whom 
 ye shall have chosen, and the Lord will not 
 hear you in that day." Us if he shall not 
 hear now, how much less will he hear when 
 we cry hereafter, who once delivered by him 
 from a king, and not without wonderous acts 
 of Providence, insensible and unworthy of 
 those high mercies, are returning precipi- 
 tantly, if he withhold us not, back to the 
 captivity from whence he freed "us? Yet nei- 
 ther shall we obtain or buy at an easy rate 
 this new gilded yoke which thus transports 
 us: a new royal revenue must be found, 
 a new episcopal; for those are individual: 
 both which being wholly dissipated, or bought 
 by private persons, or assigned for service 
 done, and especially to the army, cannot be 
 recovered without general detriment and con- 
 fusion to men's estates, or a heavy imposi- 
 tion on all men's purses ; benefit to none but 
 
LIFE OF MILTON. 481 
 
 to the worst and ignoblest sort of men, whose 
 hope is to be either the ministers of court 
 riot and excess, or the gainers by it : but not 
 to speak more of losses and extraordinary 
 levies on our estates, what will then be the 
 revenges and offences remembered and re- 
 turned not only by the chief person, but by 
 all his adherents; accounts and reparations 
 that will be required, suits, indictments, in- 
 quiries, discoveries, complaints, informations, 
 who knows against whom or how many, 
 though perhaps neuters, if not to utmost in- 
 fliction, yet to imprisonment, fines, banish- 
 ment, or molestation? if not these, yet dis- 
 favour, discountenance, disregard, and con- 
 tempt on all but the known royalist, or whom 
 he favours, will be plenteous. Nor let the 
 new royalized presbyterians persuade them- 
 selves, that their old doings, though now re- 
 canted, will be forgotten; whatever condi- 
 tions be contrived, or trusted on" 
 
 " This liberty of conscience, which above 
 all other things ought to be to all men dearest 
 and most precious, no government more in- 
 clinable not to favour only, but to protect, 
 than a free commonwealth; as being most 
 magnanimous, most fearless and confident of 
 its own fair proceedings. Whereas kingship, 
 
 2 I 
 
482 LIFE OF MILTON. 
 
 though looking big, yet indeed most pusilla- 
 nimous, full of fears, full of jealousies, start- 
 led at every umbrage, as it hath been ob- 
 served of old to have ever suspected most 
 and mistrusted them who were in most esteem 
 for virtue and generosity of mind, so it is 
 now known to have most in doubt and sus- 
 picion them who are most reputed to be re- 
 ligious. Queen Elizabeth, though herself 
 accounted so good a protestant, so mode- 
 rate, so confident of her subjects love, would 
 never give way so much as to presbyterian 
 reformation in this land, though once and 
 again besought, as Camden relates; but im- 
 prisoned and persecuted the very proposers 
 thereof; alledging it as her mind and maxim 
 unalterable, that such reformation would di- 
 minish regal authority. What liberty of con- 
 science can we then expect of others, far 
 worse principled from the cradle, trained up 
 and governed by Popish and Spanish coun- 
 sels, and on such depending hitherto for 
 subsistence ?" 
 
 " I have no more to say at present : few 
 words will save us, well considered; few and 
 easy things, now seasonably done. But if 
 the people be so affected, as to prostitute 
 religion and liberty to the vain and ground- 
 
LIFE OF MILTON. 483 
 
 less apprehension that nothing but kingship 
 can restore trade, not remembering the fre- 
 quent plagues and pestilences that then 
 wasted this city, such as through God's mercy 
 we never have felt since; and that trade flou- 
 rishes no where more than in the free com- 
 monwealths of Italy, Germany, and the Low 
 Countries, before their eyes at this day: yet 
 if trade be grown so craving and importu- 
 nate through the profuse living of tradesmen, 
 that nothing can support it but the luxu- 
 rious expences of a nation upon trifles or 
 superfluities: so as if the people generally 
 should betake themselves to frugality, it 
 might prove a dangerous matter, lest trades- 
 men should mutiny for want of trading; and 
 that therefore we must forego and set to sale 
 religion, liberty, honour, safety, all concern- 
 ments divine or human, to keep up trading: 
 if, lastly, after all this light among us, the 
 same reason shall pass for current, to put our 
 necks again under kingship, as was made use 
 of by the Jews to return back to Egypt, and 
 to the worship of their idol queen, because 
 they falsely imagined that they then lived 
 in more plenty and prosperity ; our condition 
 is not sound but rotten, both in religion and 
 all civil prudence; and will bring us soon, 
 the way we are marching, to those calami- 
 
484 LIFE OF MILTON. 
 
 ties which attend always and unavoidably 
 on luxury, all national judgments under fo- 
 reign and domestic slavery: so far we shall 
 be from mending our condition by monarch- 
 ising our government, whatever new conceit 
 now possesses us. However, with all hazard 
 I have ventured what I thought my duty to 
 speak in season, and to forewarn my country 
 in time; wherein I doubt not but there be 
 many wise men in all places and degrees, 
 but am sorry the effects of wisdom are so 
 little seen among us. Many circums lances 
 and particulars I could have added in those 
 things whereof I have spoken: but a few 
 main matters, now put speedily in execution, 
 will suffice to recover us and set all right: 
 and there will want at no time who are good 
 at circumstances; but men, who set their 
 minds on main matters and sufficiently urge 
 them in these most difficult times, I find not 
 many. What I have spoken, is the language 
 of that which is not called amiss " The good 
 old Cause:" if it seem strange to any, it will 
 not seem more strange, I hope, than convinc- 
 ing to backsliders. Thus much I should per- 
 haps have said, though I were sure I should 
 have spoken only to trees and stones; and 
 had none to cry to but, with the prophet, 
 " O earth, earth, earth I" to tell the very 
 
LIFE OF MILTON. 485 
 
 soil itself, what her perverse inhabitants are 
 deaf to. Nay, though what I have spoke 
 should happen (which thou suffer not, who 
 didst create mankind free ! nor thou next, 
 who didst redeem us from being servants of 
 men!) to be the last words of our expiring 
 liberty/' u 
 
 This production was made the subject of 
 a sportive and a serious reply: the former, 
 a ludicrous pamphlet affecting to issue from 
 Harrington's republican club, was called 
 " The Censure of the Rota upon Mr. Mil- 
 ton's Book, entitled " The ready and easy 
 Way to establish a free Commonwealth;" 
 and the latter was styled, " The Dignity of 
 Kingship asserted in Answer to Mr. Milton's 
 ready and easy Way, &c." 
 
 These attacks were not calculated to occa- 
 sion much disturbance to the republican au- 
 thor: but he could not feel equally easy on the 
 near approach of that thunder-cloud, which 
 was just ready to burst upon him and his party. 
 His spirit however did not desert him; and, 
 while there remained a possibility of uphold- 
 ing his falling cause, he was resolute and ac- 
 tive in its support. Bold in the anticipation of 
 
 11 P. VV. iii, 421; 422, 428. 
 
486 LIFE OF MILTON. 
 
 their triumph, the Royalists had already seised 
 upon the press and the pulpit for the diffusion 
 of their tenets and their resentments; and 
 Dr. Matthew Griffith, one of the late king's 
 chaplains, desirous of making a professional 
 display of his loyalty at a crisis when it 
 might be especially beneficial to him, pub- 
 lished a sermon, which he had preached at 
 Mercer's Hall, on (Proverbs xxiv. 21.) " My 
 Son, fear the Lord and the King, and meddle 
 not with them that are given to change/' 
 On this provocation Milton instantly kindled; 
 and, in a short but forcible commentary on 
 the Doctor's sermon, x renewed his strong 
 avowal of republicanism, at a time when this 
 heresy in British politics was on the point of 
 being finally proscribed. To these " brief 
 notes/' as Milton calls his remarks on Grif- 
 
 x Milton's seventy, on this intrusion of the pulpit into the 
 province of politics, reminds us of the asperity with which Mr. 
 Burke reprehended a similar invasion by a modern divine. 
 Dr. Price differed as essentially in his political principles from 
 the chaplain of Charles, as Milton did from the Marquis of 
 Rockingham's secretary: yet the two doctors experienced the 
 same treatment, and the two statesmen concurred in the same 
 sentiments of reprobation. The politics of the pulpit may, at 
 all times, perhaps be liable to just censure j but they are never 
 arraigned when they are not in opposition to our own. If 
 they are convicted of the guilt of a complexion different from 
 our's, they are certain of condemnation, and must not hope to 
 be allowed the benefit of clergy. 
 
LIFE OF MILTOX. 487 
 
 fith's sermon, I/Estrange wrote a sharp reply, 
 of which I know nothing more than its title 
 of " No blind Guides:" and with this skir- 
 mish terminated the political controversies 
 of the author of Paradise Lost. 
 
 Charles was now advancing, with the ac- 
 clamations of the people, to sit upon the 
 throne of his ancestors; and the Latin Secre- 
 tary had acted too conspicuous a part in op- 
 position to him and to his family not to be 
 endangered by the event. By his friends 
 therefore, who were solicitous for his safety, 
 Milton was hurried from his house in Petty- 
 France, where during some years he had been 
 visited with respect by the great, the opulent, 
 and the learned, and was secreted under the 
 roof of a friend in St. Bartholomew's Close, 
 near to West Smithfield. v Here his conceal- 
 
 y Mr. Warton, who occasionally collects curious anecdotes, 
 relates, on the authority of Mr. Tyers, (whose authority also ought 
 to have been stated,) that Milton's friends, for the purpose of 
 suspending the pursuit of his enemies, made a mock funeral for 
 him on the present interesting occasion j and that the trick, 
 when it was afterwards discovered, became an object of the 
 king's mirth. See Warton's Edit, of Milton's Juvenile Poems, 
 p. 358. In Cunningham's History of Great Britain, the same 
 fact is mentioned, and it is said that ff the king applauded his 
 policy in escaping the punishment of death by a seasonable 
 show of dying." When he could not murder, this facetious 
 monarch could still lau^h. 
 
488 LIFE OP MILTON. 
 
 ment was perfect; till the passing of the act 
 of oblivion, in the exceptions of which he was 
 not comprehended, ascertained his safety and 
 re-instated him in society. 
 
 To whom he was indebted on this emer- 
 gency for his preservation, has frequently 
 been inquired, and has variously been ex- 
 plained. The forge tfulness or the clemency 
 of Charles must necessarily be thrown out of 
 the question; for of the former his benefac- 
 tors only were the objects, and of the latter, 
 those alone whom his prudence or his want 
 of power prohibited him to punish. To what 
 cause, then, are we to ascribe the impunity 
 of Milton? In some points of view, his of- 
 fence might be regarded as greater even than 
 that of the immediate regicides ; for they had 
 only murdered the king, while he had insulted 
 the office; their act was confined in its conse- 
 quences to a small compass of time and of 
 place, while his extended to unborn genera- 
 tions and touched the extremities of Europe. 
 His guilt therefore, as we may be certain, 
 
 This story reminds us of the following lines of the Epi- 
 grammatist : but the suicide of Fannius was real, while that of 
 Milton was happily fictitious. 
 
 Hostem cum fugeret, se Fannius ipse peremit. 
 Hie, rogo, non furor est ne moriare mori ? 
 
 Mart. ii. 80. 
 
LITE OF MILTON. 489 
 
 could not be pardoned without powerful 
 intercession. We may conclude that his 
 friend, Andrew Marvell, the member for 
 Hull, made what interest for him he could 
 in the House; and we are told that Sir Tho- 
 mas Clarges united his exertions with those 
 of Secretary Morrice for the preservation of 
 this valuable life. But Milton seems to have 
 been saved principally by the earnest and 
 grateful interposition of Sir William D'Ave- 
 nant. When D'Avenant, who had been cap- 
 tured by the fleet of the Commonwealth on 
 his passage from France to America, had been 
 ordered by the Parliament, in 1651, to his trial 
 before the High Court of Justice, the media- 
 tion of Milton had essentially contributed to 
 snatch him from his danger; and, urged by 
 that generous benevolence which shone con- 
 spicuously in his character, he was now eager 
 to requite with a gift of equal value the life 
 which he had received. For the existence 
 of D'Avenant's obligation to Milton we have 
 the testimony of Wood; z and for the subse- 
 quent part of a story, so interesting in itself 
 and so honourable to human nature, the evi- 
 dence is distinctly and directly to be traced 
 in its ascent from Richardson to Pope, and 
 
 7 - Athenae Oxon. ii. 412. 
 
490 LIFE OF MILTON. 
 
 from Pope to Betterton, the immediate client 
 and intimate of D'Avenant. 
 
 On the passing of the Act of Oblivion, 3 in 
 the full grace of which he found himself in- 
 cluded^ Milton left the retirement, where he 
 had continued for nearly four months; and in 
 which he had heard himself made by a vote of 
 the Commons the object of a public prosecu- 
 
 a On the 29th of August. 
 
 b John Goodwin, a divine and a writer of no celebrity, who 
 had justified, without ability or effect, the murder of the king, 
 was not beneath the condescension of this act of the legislature. 
 He was incapacitated by it from holding any public office : and 
 he is said to have owed his life only to the circumstance of his 
 Arminian principles, which had conciliated the favour of some 
 of the leading clergy of the church of England. His obnoxious 
 work, which was called " The Obstructors of Justice," had the 
 honour of burning with Milton's superior publications. 
 
 Verum idem ex animo, (says Isaac Vossius speaking of Sal- 
 masius, in a letter to N. Heinsius, from Stockholm, dated on the 
 5th of April, 1651) gaudet librum Miltoni Lutetiae publice a car- 
 nifice esse combustum. Non opus est ut meum de hoc scripto 
 interponam judicium : interim hoc scio, fatum esse bonorum fere 
 librorum, ut hoc modo vel pereant vel periclitentur. Homines ple- 
 rumque propter scelera et pravitatern manus carnificum subeunt, 
 libri vero virtutis et praestantiae ergo. Soli fatuorum labores tales 
 non metuunt casus, Sed sane frustr^ sunt, qui se hoc modo ex- 
 stirpare posse existimant Miltoni et aliorum scripta, cum potius 
 flammis istis mirum quantum clarescant et illustrentur. [Burm. 
 Syll. iii. 621.] These are the remarks of a man who was sen- 
 sible not only of the merit of Milton's work, but of the impo. 
 tence of that vengeance, which the enemies of its great author 
 attempted by this measure to inflict on it. By what caprice or 
 mistake could Isaac Vossius be promoted in our church by the 
 same hands which raised the dirty Du Moulin to one of its 
 dignities? 
 
 
LIFE OF MILTON. 491 
 
 tion, and his two great political works, the 
 " Iconoclastes" and the " Defence of the 
 People of England/' condemned to be burnt 
 by the hands of the hangman. By this last 
 species of insult, he was probably no more 
 affected on the present occasion than he had 
 formerly been by its infliction on one of the 
 same publications at Toulouse and at Paris: 
 and he probably also only smiled when, for the 
 purpose of increasing his unpopularity and, 
 of course, his danger at this delicate crisis of his 
 fortune, the malignity of his enemies published 
 the abuse and calumnies which had been 
 vented against him by the dying Salmasius. 
 But those scenes of sanguinary execution, 
 
 c I must here, with some shame and much regret, remark 
 a circumstance which favourably distinguished the usurping go- 
 vernment from the regular monarchy. During the usurpation 
 men had been convicted of high treason, (for the Courts had 
 properly determined that attempts against the actual represen- 
 tative of the state, (by whatever title he was called,) were high 
 treason, but simple death was the utmost infliction ; and the axe 
 or the halter put the speediest period to the existence of the cri- 
 minal. But on the restoration of the monarchy, the old barbarity 
 of the law was admitted in its full horror. Men were quartered 
 alive : the bowels were torn from the yet breathing sufferer, and 
 the public feeling was either disgusted or hardened by the spec- 
 tacle of torture and ferocious punishment. The infliction of this 
 abominable sentence in its full rigour is now, in fact, prohibited 
 by the general sense of the community: but much, of course, 
 must still be left to the discretion cf the sheriff and the execu- 
 tioner. The correspondent punishment for females, that I mean 
 of burning alive, has very properly been abolished by an act of 
 
492 LIFE OF MILTON. 
 
 which he was soon destined to witness, must 
 have carried the wound immediately to his 
 heart. 
 
 That the clemency of Charles should be 
 the theme of lavish panegyric with contem- 
 porary loyalty ought not possibly to excite our 
 surprise: but, with reference to him, the time 
 has long since elapsed in which praise, unsup- 
 ported by truth, can be admitted on the plea 
 of passion. If we reflect that Charles was 
 not now reclaiming his royal rights as a con- 
 cur Legislature in the 30th year of the present reign : and it is to 
 be hoped that this ferocious punishment of quartering alive,, will 
 not be suffered much longer to pollute the pages of our criminal 
 code. No man can deplore with more genuine sensibility than 
 myself the sanguinary excesses and the opprobrious result of 
 the French revolution : but when I reflect that it has banished 
 the rack and the wheel, the red-hot pincers and the dismem- 
 bering horse, 1 cannot forbear from thinking that it has made a 
 considerable compensation to human nature for any violences 
 which, in the paroxysm of its phrenzy, it may have offered 
 to her. 
 
 Since this note was in print, it has been suggested to me 
 that the use of torture, for extorting confession, has been revived 
 in France. With the dreadful secrets of the dungeons of resus- 
 citated despotism I pretend not to be acquainted \ but no public 
 exhibition or avowal of torture has yet shocked the community of 
 France. The re-establishment however of this cruel and atro- 
 cious practice cannot be regarded as improbable in the new em- 
 pire of the French j and, with the renovation of the slave trade 
 and of negro slavery in the West Indies, it will form an act of 
 legislation well worthy, in. its double reference to humanity and 
 to political wisdom, of the -new imperial government of the august 
 Buonapartes. 
 
 
LIFE OF MILTON. 493 
 
 queror; that the nation was not trembling at 
 his feet, and, like a city taken by storm, in 
 a state to be thankful for every deed of 
 brutal violence which was not committed, 
 but that in truth he was an impotent exile, 
 receiving gratuitously a crown from the very 
 hands which had torn it from his family, 
 from a Parliament, a great majority of whose 
 members had been active in the overthrow 
 of the monarchy, and from an army, which 
 had immediately conducted his father to the 
 scaffold, we may reasonably inquire by what 
 acts could he have discovered a stronger pro- 
 pensity to cruelty than he did. In the first 
 moments of power, conferred on him by his 
 recent popularity, when his heart ought to 
 have been softened by the unexpected influx 
 of prosperous fortune, he eluded the propo- 
 sition, which was made to him at Breda, for 
 a general amnesty, and evidently discovered 
 that his spirit brooded on revenge. When he 
 was seated on his throne, he accepted those 
 victims which the perfidiousness of party, 
 in expiation of its own offences, was so base 
 as to offer to him; and he glutted the nation, 
 as far as he durst, with an effusion of blood, 
 not more guilty than that of thousands per- 
 haps who were present to behold it; for they 
 who from their office were more personally 
 
494 LIFE OF MILTON. 
 
 engaged in the trial and the execution of the 
 king, were unquestionably not more criminal 
 than were all shose who had voted for these 
 violences in Parliament; or in the army had 
 first planned, and then imperiously carried 
 them into effect. More however than they 
 who were regarded as the actual regicides were 
 exempted from the benefit of the amnesty. 
 Neither Vane, nor Peters, nor Lambert was 
 immediately implicated in the murder of the 
 king; yet the two former of these were 
 slaughtered, (and Vane, in violation of the 
 royal promise to the Parliament for his par- 
 don,) while the last, the most guilty of the 
 three, was indeed permitted to live, but to 
 live only in a state of miserable exile. 
 
 But not limited to the sufferings of the 
 living, the vengeance of Charles extended 
 itself to mean and atrocious outrages on the 
 dead. It broke the hallowed repose of the 
 tomb, and exhibited that last infirmity of 
 our mortal nature, the corruption through 
 which it is doomed to pass into its kindred 
 earth, to the derision and the disgust of im- 
 potent malignity. When we behold the bo- 
 dies of the illustrious usurper d and of the 
 
 d Tt is well known that many doubts have existed respect- 
 ing the place in which Oliver Cromwell was interred 5 and it has 
 been advanced, on authority which cannot easily be controvertedj 
 
LIFE OF MILTON. 
 
 formidable Ireton torn from their graves, 
 
 that his corpse was removed, on the day succeeding that of 
 his death, and buried in the field of Naseby. The account 
 goes further and affirms that, suspicious of the indignities which 
 would probably in a change of things be offered to the Usurp- 
 er's body, his friends substituted for it in the coffin that of 
 Charles 5 and that it was this corpse which was afterwards ex- 
 posed on the gallows at Tyburn. To entertain my readers I 
 will present them with a curious paper on this subject, pre- 
 served in Lord Somers's Collection. I must premise however 
 that, as eleven years had nearly elapsed since the death of 
 Charles, it is difficult to conceive how any distinction of coun- 
 tenance, or of seam about the neck could at this period be traced: 
 unless indeed the process of dissolution had been suspended by 
 the arts of embalming, the corpse, with the exception of the 
 bones, must now have been resolved into its original elements. 
 But the second fact, stated in the following document, is attested 
 by less authentic evidence than the first ; and one may be rejected 
 while the other is received. 
 
 " A counter-interment of the aforesaid arch, tray tor,* as averred, 
 and ready to be deposed (if occasion required) by Mr. 
 - Barkstead, who daily frequents Richard's coffee-house, 
 within Temple-Bar, being son to Barkstead, the regicide, 
 that was executed as such soon after the Restoration, the son 
 being at the time of the said arch-traytor's death about the 
 age of fifteen years. 
 
 " That the said regicide Barkstead, being lieutenant of the 
 Tower of London, and a great confident of the usurper, did 
 among other such confidents, in the time of the usurper's sick- 
 ness, desire to know where he would be buried : to which he 
 answered, where he had obtained the greatest victory and glory, 
 and as nigh the spot as could be guessed where the heat of the 
 action was, viz. in the field at Naseby, county of Northampton j 
 which accordingly was thus performed: at midnight (soon after 
 his death) being first embalmed, and wrapped in a leaden coffin, 
 he was in a hearse conveyed to the same field, the said Mr, 
 
 * Oliver Cromwell, 
 
496 LITE OF MILTON. 
 
 and made the subject of idle punishment, 
 
 Barkstead by order of his father attending close to the hearse, 
 and being come to the field, there found about the midst of it 
 a grave, dug about nine feet deep, with the green sod carefully 
 laid on one side and the mould on the other; in which the 
 coffin being soon put, the grave was instantly filled up, and the 
 green sod laid exactly flat upon it, care being taken that the 
 surplus mould was clean taken away. 
 
 Soon after, like care was taken that the said field was en- 
 tirely ploughed up, and sown three or four years successively 
 with wheat. 
 
 Several other material circumstances, rehting to the said in- 
 terment, the said Mr. Barkstead relates (too long to be here in- 
 serted) and, particularly, after the Restoration, his conference, 
 with the late (witty) duke of Buckingham, &c. 
 
 Talking over this account of Barkstead's, with the Rev. Mr. 
 
 Sm--., of Q , whose father had long resided in Florence as 
 
 a merchant, and afterwards as minister from King Charles the 
 second, and had been well acquainted with the fugitives after 
 the Restoration, he assured me, he had often heard the said ac- 
 count by other hands j those miscreants always boasting that 
 they had wreaked their revenge against the father, as far as 
 human foresight could carry it, by beheading him whilst living, 
 and making his best friends the executioners of the utmost ig- 
 nominies upon him when dead. Asking him the particular 
 meaning of the last sentence, he said, that Oliver and his 
 friends, apprehending the restoration of the Stuart family, and 
 that all imaginable disgrace on that turn would be put upon 
 his body as well as memory, he contrived his own burial, as 
 averred by Barkstead, having all the theatrical honours of a 
 pompous funeral paid to an empty coffin, into which after- 
 wards was removed the corpse of the martyr, (which, by Lord 
 Clarendon's own account, had never truly or certainly been 
 interred ; and, after the Restoration, when most diligently sought 
 after by the Earls of Southampton and Lindsey, at the com- 
 mand of King Charles the second, in order to a solemn removal, 
 could no where in the church where he was said to have been 
 buried be found,) that, if any sentence should be pronounced, 
 
LIFE OF MILTON. 497 
 
 we are less disposed to wonder than to smile 
 at the cowardly and pitiful insult: but when 
 we see subjected to similar indignities the 
 mouldering remains of the noble-minded 
 
 as upon his body, it might effectually fall upon that of the King. 
 That, on that order of the Commons, in King Charles the se- 
 cond's time, the tomb was broken down, and the body, taken 
 out of a coffin so inscribed as mentioned in the Serjeant's report, 
 was from thence conveyed to Tyburn, and, to the utmost joy 
 and triumph of that crew of miscreants, hung publickly on the 
 gallows amidst an infinite crowd of spectators, almost infected 
 with the noisomeness of the stench. The secret being only 
 amongst that abandoned few, there was no doubt in the rest of 
 the people, but the bodies, so exposed, were the bodies they 
 were said to bej had not some, whose curiosity had brought 
 them nearer to the tree, observed with horror the remains of 
 a countenance they little had expected there; and that, on 
 tying the cord, there was a strong seam about the neck, by 
 which the head had been, as supposed, immediately after the 
 decollation, fastened again to the body. This being whispered 
 about, and the numbers that came to the dismal sight hourly 
 increasing, notice was immediately given of the suspicion to 
 the attending officer, who dispatched a messenger to court to 
 acquaint them with the rumour, and the ill consequences the 
 spreading or examining into it further might have. On which 
 the bodies were immediately ordered down to be buried again 
 to prevent any infection. Certain is it, they were not burnt, 
 as in prudence, for that pretended reason, might have been ex- 
 pected j as well as in justice, to have shewn the utmost detesta- 
 tion for their crimes, and the most lasting mark of infamy they 
 could inflict upon them. This was the account he gave. What 
 truth there is in it, is not so certain. Many circumstances mako 
 the surmise not altogether improbable: as all those enthusiasts, 
 to the last moments of their lives, ever gloried in the truth of it." 
 
 2 K 
 
498 LIFE Or MILTON. 
 
 Blake/ of the mild and the amiable Clay- 
 pole, oi}e of whom had strenuously opposed 
 all the crimes of her father's ambition and 
 the other had carried the thunder and the 
 fame of his country to the extremities of the 
 world, we are shocked by the infamy of the 
 deed, and are tempted in the bitterness of 
 our hearts to vent a curse upon the savage- 
 ness of the perpetrators. 
 
 " Glows our resentment into guilt? what guilt 
 Can equal violations of the dead? 
 The dead how sacred ! sacred is the dust 
 Of this heaven-labour'd form, erect, divine. 
 
 Respecting the great Blake, whose name occupies the first 
 place in our naval annals, and who, for integrity and a truly pa- 
 triotic spirit, is unquestionably one of the first characters in our 
 history, the reader can require no information. Mrs. Claypole 
 was the Protector's favourite daughter; and she had been uni- 
 form in her opposition to all the violences of his ambition. 
 Her intercession for the life of the royalist, Doctor Hewett, had 
 been so earnest, that her disappointment on its failure is sup- 
 posed to have hastened the crisis of her death. The Protector's 
 mother, whose relics were exposed to the same unworthy treat- 
 ment, was equally adverse to his elevation and ambitious ex- 
 cesses. She was an excellent and amiable woman, and with her 
 granddaughter, whom we have just mentioned, was entitled to 
 the respect of all parties. Among the bodies torn on this occa,- 
 sion by brutal revenge from the sanctuary of the tomb, was that 
 of May the continuator and translator of Lucan, and that of the 
 celebrated Pym. The bodies, which were thus dug up and thrown 
 together into a common pit, were more than twenty; and this de- 
 testable violation of the grave was stopped only by the popular 
 indignation which it justly excited, and which the prudence of 
 the government judged it proper to respect. 
 
LIFE OP MILTON. 499 
 
 This heaven-assumed majestic robe of earth 
 HE deign'd to wear,, who hung the vast expanse 
 With azure bright, and clothed the sun in gold. 
 When every passion sleeps, that can offend; 
 When strikes us every motive, that can melt; 
 When man can wreak his malice uncontroii'd, 
 That strongest curb on insult am' ill-will, 
 Then spleen to dust !" 
 
 Freed from immediate danger, Milton 
 had now leisure to reflect on all these re- 
 vengeful and dishonourable violences of the 
 government; and the impression made on 
 his mind by the sufferings of his party may 
 be distinctly traced in some pathetic and ani- 
 mated strains in the Samson Agonistes. 
 
 t( God of our fathers ! what is man ! 
 
 That thou towards him with hand so various, 
 
 Or might I say contrarious, 
 
 Tecnper'st thy providence through his short course 
 
 Not evenly, as thou rulest 
 
 The angelic orders, and inferior creatures mute, 
 
 Irrational and brute. 
 
 Nor do I name of men the common rout, 
 
 That wandring loose about, 
 
 Grow up and perish, as the summer fly, 
 
 Heads without name no more remembered j 
 
 But such as thou hast solemnly elected, 
 
 With gifts and graces eminently adprn'd, 
 
 To some great work, thy glory, 
 
 And people's safety, which in part they effect: 
 
 Yet towards these thus dignified, thou oft 
 
 Amidst their heighth of noon 
 
 Changest thy countenance and thy hand, with no regard 
 
 Of highest favours past 
 
 From thee on thero, or them to thee of service. 
 
500 LIFE Of MILTON. 
 
 Not only dost degrade them, or remit 
 
 To life obscured, which were a fair dismission, 
 
 But throw'st them lower than thou didst exalt them high j 
 
 Unseemly falls in human eye, 
 
 Too grievous for the trespass or omission : 
 
 Oft leavest them to the hostile sword 
 
 Of heathen and profane, their carcasses 
 
 To dogs and fowls a prey, or else captived ; 
 
 Or to the unjust tribunals, under change of times, 
 
 And condemnation of the ungrateful multitude. 
 
 If these they 'scape, perhaps in poverty, 
 
 With sickness and disease thou bow'st them down, 
 
 Painful diseases, and deform'd, 
 
 In crude old age ; 
 
 Though not disordinate, yet causeless suffering 
 
 The punishment of dissolute days: in fine, 
 
 Just or unjust alike seem miserable, 
 
 For oft alike both come to evil end." 
 
 Scarcely had Milton left his concealment 
 when he was taken into custody, in conse- 
 quence, as we may conclude, of the order for 
 his apprehension which had been issued by 
 the House of Commons on the 16th of June: 
 but all our acquaintance with the transaction 
 is derived from the following minutes in the 
 Journals of that House. 
 
 " Saturday 15th Decem. 1660. 
 
 " Ordered, that Mr. Milton now in cus- 
 tody of the Serjeant, attending this House, 
 be forthwith released, paying his fees." 
 
 " Mond. nth Decem. 
 " A complaint being made, that the Ser- 
 

 LIFE OF MILTON. 501 
 
 jeant at arms had demanded excessive fees 
 for the imprisonment of Mr. Milton:" 
 
 " Ordered, that it be referred to a com- 
 mittee for privileges, to examine this business, 
 and to call Mr, Milton and the Serjeant be- 
 fore them, and to determine what is fit to be 
 given to the Serjeant for his fees in this case/' 
 
 On his return to society, Milton took a 
 house in Holborn near to Red Lion Square; 
 which he occupied only for a short term, as 
 we find him, in 1662, residing in Jewin 
 Street. From this situation he removed to 
 a small house in the Artillery Walk adjoining 
 to Bunhill Fields, where he continued dur- 
 ing the remaining part of his life. The cir- 
 cumstance of l^is lodging for some interme- 
 diate time, after he left Jewin Street, with 
 Millingtou the celebrated auctioneer, who 
 was accustomed to lead his venerable inmate 
 by the hand when he walked in the streets, 
 is mentioned by Richardson on the testimony 
 of a person, who was acquainted with Milton 
 and who had frequently met him abroad with 
 his conductor and host. The fact therefore 
 ought not to be rejected in consequence of 
 its omission by the other biographers of our 
 author. 
 
 In Jewin Street, on the recommendation 
 of his friend Dr. Paget, a physician of emi- 
 
502 LIFE OF MILTON". 
 
 nence in London to whom the lady was dis- 
 tantly related, he married his third wife, 
 Elizabeth Minshull, the daughter of a gen- 
 tleman of Cheshire. The domestic situation 
 of Milton was now such as almost to compel 
 him to seek for the aid and the protection 
 of a wife. At fifty-four years of age, he was 
 in a great degree submitted by his blindness 
 to the power of others; and by his studious 
 habits, from the indulgence of which all his 
 resources of pleasure were derived, he was 
 peculiarly disqualified for the management of 
 a family. He had not indeed been wholly 
 without the counsels- and assistance of a fe- 
 male friend ; for he had been indulged dur- 
 ing this period with the intimacy of Lady 
 Ranelagh, the favourite and accomplished 
 sister of the celebrated Robert. Boyle. This 
 estimable Lady, who had placed her son 
 under Milton's care, seems to have been as- 
 siduous in discovering her sense of his high 
 worth by rendering to him every service, 
 which his circumstances could require or 
 her's would enable her to offer. In one of 
 the four letters to his pupil, which were pub- 
 lished with his famjliar epistles, he speaks of 
 her, at that time preparing to depart for Ire- 
 land, in terms of the most grateful affection: 
 " The absence/' he says, " of your most excel- 
 
LIFE OF MILTON". 505 
 
 lent mother must be equally lamented by us 
 both; for to me she has supplied the place 
 of every friend whom I could want/' But 
 his infirmities were of a nature not to admit 
 of substantial relief from any but a domestic 
 friend; and for alleviation from the kind- 
 nesses of filial piety they unhappily solicited 
 in vain. From the conduct of his daughters 
 he experienced nothing but mortification and 
 aggravated distress. 
 
 His nuncupative f will, which has lately 
 been discovered in the Prerogative registry 
 and was published by Mr. Warton, 8 opens a 
 glimpse into the interior of Milton's house, 
 and shows him to have been amiable and in- 
 jured in that private scene, in which alone 
 he has generally been considered as liable to 
 censure, or rather perhaps as not intitled to af- 
 fection. In this will, and in the papers con- 
 nected with it, we find the venerable father 
 complaining of his " unkind children/' as he 
 calls them, for leaving and neglecting him 
 
 f Nunc discedens in Hiberniam mater tua praestantissima, 
 cujus discessu uterque nostrum dolere baud mediocriter debe- 
 mus, nam et mihi omnium necessitudinum loco fuit, has ad te 
 literas ipsa perfert. Sept. 21, 1(>56. P. W. vi. 132. 
 
 8 This will, with the deposition of the witnesses, is published 
 as an appendix to the preface of Mr. Warton's 2d edit, of Mil- 
 ton's Juvenile Poems, and is well entitled to the reader's notice. 
 
504 LIFE OF MILTOX. 
 
 because he was blind; and we see him com- 
 pelled, as it were, by their injurious conduct 
 to appeal against them even to his servants. 
 We are assured also, by the deposition on 
 oath of one of these servants, that his com- 
 plaints were not extorted by slight wrongs, 
 or uttered by capricious passion on trivial 
 provocations : that his children, with the ex- 
 ception probably of Deborah, who at the time 
 immediately in question was not more than 
 nine years old, would occasionally sell his 
 books to the dunghill women, as the witness 
 calls them: that these daughters were capa- 
 ble of combining with the maid-servant, and 
 of advising her to cheat her master and their 
 father in her marketings; and that one of 
 them, Mary, on being told that her father 
 was to be married, replied that " that was 
 no news, but if she could hear of his death 
 that were something/' h 
 
 A wife, therefore, was necessary to rescue 
 him from such undutiful and almost dan- 
 gerous hands; and in the lady, whom his. 
 
 h Circumstanced as he was at this juncture, and with refer- 
 ence to his daughters, Milton might properly be regarded, like 
 
 Lear, as 
 
 " a poor old man, 
 
 More sinn'd against than sinning j" 
 and might, perhaps, feel 
 
 " How sharper than a serpent's tooth it is 
 To have a thankless child." 
 
LIFE OF MILTON 505 
 
 friend selected for him, he seems to have ob- 
 tained the assistant whom his circumstances 
 demanded. In opposition to the unfavour- 
 able report made of her by Philips, and the 
 hints on the subject of her temper sug- 
 gested by Richardson, she appears to have 
 been uniformly attentive and affectionate to 
 her husband. She is the sole object of his 
 regard in his will; and the general harmony 
 of their union is attested by all the deposi- 
 tions to that instrument. If her temper ever 
 deserted her, it was in consequence of her 
 husband's inattention to the advancement of 
 his worldly fortunes: and when an offer was 
 made to him, soon after their marriage, of a 
 restitution of his official situation, she is said 
 to have pressed, with much earnest and trou- 
 ^blesome importunity, his acceptance of the 
 proffered benefit. But to be in office under 
 the new government, and under Charles 
 whom he saw polluted with the blood of his 
 friends, was abhorrent from all his principles 
 and his feelings, and he silenced the solici- 
 tations of the lady with, " You are in the 
 right: you as other w r omen would ride in 
 your coach: my aim is to live and die an 
 honest man." 
 
 1 The fact is mentioned by Richardson ; and rests upon an- 
 thority which seem* to bt decisive. Richardson received it 
 
506 LIFE OF MILTON. 
 
 About the time of his marriage, or pro- 
 bably a little before it, he published a short 
 treatise entitled, " Accidence commenced 
 
 from Henry Bendyshe (a grandson, I believe, of the Protector's) 
 who was an intimate in Milton's house, and who had heard it 
 mentioned by his family. No less doubtful testimony woultf 
 induce me to admit so strong an instance of the placability of 
 Charles. To Thurloe, however, it is certain that a similar 
 offer was made; and we can only infer from these, what we 
 may collect from other instances of his conduct, that Charles's 
 prudence could sometimes prevail over his revenge j or that his 
 inattention to business, in consequence of his unrestrained pur- 
 suit of pleasure, induced him to resign the management of these 
 affairs into the hands of others, who were not actuated by his 
 passions. 
 
 I am not surprised that Dr. Johnson should treat this cir- 
 eumstance as an obscure story j and place it among those '' large 
 offers and sturdy rejections," which hir, own feelings taught him 
 to consider as the visions of romance, and to be classed with 
 '" the most common topics of falsehood." Any other language 
 would have been inconsistent from the lips of the pensioned advo- 
 eate of government iu some of its most unconstitutional and 
 unfortunate measures. Dr. Johnson's admirers must forgive 
 me, if, with considerable respect for his moral and intellectual 
 character, I am tempted to observe that he actually wanted the 
 power to comprehend the greatness and elevation of Milton's 
 mind. 
 
 Mrs. Milton survived her husband, in a state of widow- 
 hood, nearly fifty-five years, dying at Namptwich in her native 
 Cheshire, about the year 1729. She related that her husband 
 composed principally in the winter ; and on his waking in the 
 morning would make- her write down sometimes twenty or 
 thirty verses. On being asked whether he did not frequently 
 read Homer and Virgil, she replied that, " he stole from no- 
 body but the muse who inspired him." To a lady, inquiring 
 who the muse was, she answered, " it was God's grace and the 
 Spirit that visited him nightly." (Newton.'* I life of Miltan.i 
 
LIFE OF MILTON. 307 
 
 Grammar/' intended to facilitate the first weak 
 step of the juvenile student; and remark- 
 able only for its exhibition of a mighty mind 
 stooping in dignified condescension to uti- 
 lity, and regarding nothing as high or no- 
 thing as low otherwise than as it referred to 
 the discharge of duty and the good of his 
 species. In the same year also he gave to 
 the public another manuscript of the great 
 Ralegh's, with the title of " Aphorisms of 
 State." 
 
 By the publication of these inconsider- 
 able works, and by his known losses from the 
 change of government, it is probable that 
 his enemies were encouraged at this junc- 
 ture to insult over his poverty ; and to 
 speak of him as writing for his bread. Of 
 these topics of their malignity the following- 
 lines, preserved by Richardson and eminent 
 only for their malice, may be cited as an in- 
 stance: 
 
 Upon JOHN MILTON'S not suffering for his iruiterous 
 Book when the 'fryers were executed, lG60. 
 
 " That thou escaped'st k that vengeance, which o ertook, 
 Milton, thy regicides, and thy own book, 
 
 k When Milton complains of e\til tongues, Dr. Johnson says 
 " the charge itself seems to be false, for it would be hard to re- 
 collect any reproach cast upon him, either serious or ludicrous, 
 through the whole remaining part of his life." Besides the 
 
508 LIFE OF MILTON. 
 
 Was clemency in Charles beyond compare: 
 And yet thy doom doth prove more grievous far. 
 Old, sickly, poor, stark blind, thou writest for bread : 
 So for to live thou'dst call Salmasius from the dead." 
 
 lines, which I have here cited, it would be easy to produce 
 many more effusions of malevolence, of which Milton was the 
 object during his life timej and which fully justify his com- 
 plaints, and our execration of the malignity of party. 
 
 As a story, which I have seen in print, (but by whom told 
 or on what authority I know not,) is in perfect harmony with 
 the point and spirit of these verses, it shall be inserted for the 
 amusement of my readers. It bears some internal marks of 
 authenticity, and exhibits very justly the gay and the gloomy 
 malignity of the two royal brothers, Charles and James. 
 
 " The Duke of York, as it is reported, expressed one day 
 to the king his brother a great desire to see old Milton of 
 whom he had heard so much. The king replied that he felt no 
 objection to the Duke's satisfying his curiosity:* and accordingly, 
 soon afterwards James went privately to Milton's house j where, 
 after an introduction which explained to the old republican the 
 rank of his guest, a free conversation ensued between these very 
 dissimilar and discordant characters. In the course however 
 of the conversation, the Duke asked Milton whether he did not 
 regard the loss of his eye-sight as a judgment inflicted on him 
 for what he had written against the late king. Milton's reply 
 was to this effect j " If your Highness thinks that the calami- 
 ties which befall us here are indications of the wrath of Heaven, 
 in what manner are we to account for the fate of the king your 
 father? The displeasure of Heaven must upon this supposition 
 have been much greater against him than against me for I have 
 lost only my eyes., but he lost his head." 
 
 Much discomposed by this answer, the Duke soon took his 
 leave and went away. On his return to Court, the first words 
 which he spoke to the king were, " Brother, you are greatly 
 to Mame that you don't have that old rogue Milton hanged." 
 " Why \\ hat is the matter, James," said the King, " you seen* 
 
LIFE OF MILTON. 509 
 
 But the moderation of his wants still 
 kept him at a distance from poverty; and 
 they, who could suppose him to be unhappy, 
 must have been ill acquainted w r ith the con- 
 solations of conscious rectitude, or with the 
 exquisite gratification to be enjoyed by a 
 mind affluent in knowledge, and by an ima- 
 gination which could range without controll 
 through the spacious walks of the universe. 
 
 Soon after Milton's establishment in Jewin 
 street, Ellwood the quaker was introduced 
 to his acquaintance by Doctor Paget. Ell- 
 wood, who is one of the most considerable 
 of the writers of his sect, has left behind him 
 a history of his life; and, from his accidental 
 intercourse with the author of Paradise Lost, 
 he is raised into an object of our particular 
 regard. He was the son of an Oxfordshire 
 magistrate ; and falling at an early period 
 of life into the opinions of quakerism he in- 
 curred the displeasure of his family, and ex- 
 
 in a heat. What? have you seen Milton?" ff Yes," answered 
 the Duke, " I have seen him. " Well," said the King, " in 
 what condition did you find him ?" " Condition? why he is old 
 and very poor." " Old and poor! Well, and he is blind too 
 is he not?" " Yes, blind as a beetle." <f Why then," observed 
 the King, " you are a fool, James, to have him hanged as a pu- 
 nishment : to hang him will be doing him a service j it will be 
 taking him out of his miseries No if he be old, poor, and 
 blind, he is miserable enough: in all conscience, let him 
 liye!" 
 
 
510 LIFE OP MILTON. 
 
 posed himself to a variety of distressful inci- 
 dents. To an ardent zeal for the tenets of 
 his peculiar sect he united a strong passion 
 for literature; which, having been removed 
 prematurely from school by the oeconomy of 
 his father, he had hitherto been indulged 
 with few opportunities of gratifying. With 
 the hope of advancing himself in classical 
 knowledge, he now solicited an introduction, 
 in the character of a reader, to Milton; and 
 in this great man, conciliated by the inge- 
 nuousness of his manners and by the good- 
 ness of Ins heart, Ellwood soon found a friend 
 as well as an instructor. If the beneficial 
 commerce indeed had not experienced fre- 
 quent interruptions in consequence of those 
 misfortunes, to which he was subjected as 
 the member of a sect at that juncture the 
 object of particular and violent persecution, 
 the defects of the young quaker's education 
 would probably have been soon and af- 
 fluently supplied. For the purpose of being 
 jiear to his new friend, Ellwood settled him- 
 self in a lodging in the vicinity of Jewin street; 
 and attended on every afternoon, that of sun- 
 day excepted, to read such Roman authors as 
 his patron was desirous of hearing. 
 
 In the commencement of this intercourse, 
 Milton was studious to form his reader's 
 
LITE OF MILTON. 511 
 
 tongue to the foreign pronunciation of the 
 latin, assigning, as a reason for his conduct, 
 the impossibility of conversing with foreigners 
 without this condescension to the habit of 
 their ears. Whether the object were really 
 of the magnitude attributed to it by Milton, 
 I should be much inclined to question: but 
 it was not, of course, disputed by Ell wood; 
 whose perseverance, though with consider- 
 able difficult}', finally achieved it and suc- 
 ceeded in accommodating his accents to his 
 master's taste. As he proceeded in reading 
 the classics his tones would frequently betray 
 his ignorance of what he read, and Milton 
 would then stop him to explain the passage 
 which seemed not to be understood. This re- 
 ciprocality of service and reward was soon 
 however suspended by a severe tit of illness, 
 which obliged Ellwood to retire to the house 
 of a friend in the country. On his recovery 
 he returned to town, and resumed his situa- 
 tion as reader in our author's study, where he 
 uniformly experienced the kindness of a friend 
 and the instructions of a master. After a 
 short interval, he was again separated from 
 this beneficial connexion by the circumstance 
 of his being seised in a quaker meeting by 
 a party of soldiers, and detained for a consi- 
 derable time with his associates in a succes- 
 
512 LIFE OF MILTON. 
 
 sion of prisons. When he was liberated from 
 these most iniquitous inflictions, he obtained 
 admission into the family of an opulent quaker, 
 at Chalfont in Buckinghamshire, in the qua- 
 lity of instructor to his son: and in this situa- 
 tion, when the plague was ravaging the me- 
 tropolis, Ell wood was enabled to show his 
 regard for Milton by hiring a small house for 
 him at Chalfont St. Giles. 
 
 Here, after another period of absence 
 occasioned by a second imprisonment, the 
 young quaker called upon his friend, and 
 received from him at their first interview a 
 manuscript, which the author desired him to 
 carry home and to read at his leisure. This 
 manuscript was that of Paradise Lost. " After 
 I had with the best attention read it through, 
 says the respectable Ellwood, " I made him 
 another visit, and returned him his book, 
 with due acknowledgment of the favour he 
 had done me in communicating it to me. 
 He asked me how I liked it, and what I 
 thought of it: which I modestly and freely 
 told him; and, after some further discourse, 
 I pleasantly said to him, Thou hast said 
 much here of Paradise lost; but what hast 
 thou to say of Paradise found? He made me 
 no answer, but sat some time in a muse: then 
 broke oft" that discourse, and fell upon ano- 
 
LIFE OF MILTON />I3 
 
 ther subject. After the sickness was over, 
 and the city well cleansed and become safely 
 habitable again, he returned thither; and 
 when afterwards I went to wait upon him, 
 (which 1 seldom failed of doing whenever my 
 occasions led me to London,) he showed me 
 his second poem, called Paradise Regained, 
 and in a pleasant tone said to me, this is 
 owing to you, for you put it into my head 
 by the question you put to me at Chalfont, 
 which before I had not thought of." 
 
 The term of Milton's residence at Chal- 
 font has not been precisely specified ; but from 
 the circumstances to which it was accom- 
 modated, the prevalence and the extirpation 
 of the plague in the capital, we may infer 
 that it extended from the June or the July of 
 1665 to the March or the April of the follow- 
 ing year. In this period, as I fully concur 
 in opinion with its editor, Mr. Dunster, was 
 the poem of Paradise Regained not only 
 begun, but brought to its conclusion. It 
 was shown, as we have just been informed, 
 to Ellwood on his first visit to London after 
 the author's return from Chalfont; and there 
 is nothing in the poem, whether we respect 
 its length or the style of its composition, evi- 
 dently marked with the characters of haste, 
 which can induce us to reject as improbable 
 
 2 L 
 
514 LIFE OF MILTON. 
 
 the fact of its production, by a mind like 
 Milton's, in the space of ten months. 
 
 Though he was destined at this juncture 
 of his party's disgrace to experience the 
 neglect if not the enmity of his ungrateful 
 countrymen, Milton still lived in the esti- 
 mation of the learned and the illustrious 
 of other nations; by whom his safety, in this 
 fatal season, was acknowledged to be an 
 object of solicitous interest. A rumour had 
 been circulated of his having fallen under 
 the desolating disease; and his foreign friends 
 were anxious to have their apprehensions 
 relieved, and to express their gratification 
 on the event of his escape. Of this we 
 possess authentic evidence in the last of his 
 familiar epistles, written in answer at this 
 time to Peter Heimbach; 1 a learned German, 
 who had formerly, as it would appear, been 
 assisted by our author's instructions, and who 
 was now advanced to a station of dignity and 
 trust in the Electoral government of Bran- 
 denburgh. The letter in question is of a 
 
 1 I have seen a gratulatory address to Cromwell, written in 
 Latin by this Peter Heimbach, and printed in London in 1656. 
 Of this production I cannot speak in terms of high commenda- 
 tion. Violence of praise may be indulged to a professed pane- 
 gyric : but the whole composition is stiff and inflated, and in a 
 taste very different from that of his great correspondent. 
 
LIFE OF MILTON. 515 
 
 nature to merit insertion, and fully to com- 
 pensate the reader for its short interruption 
 of the narrative. 
 
 Ornatissimo Viro Petro Heimbachio, Electoris 
 Brandenburgici Consiliario. 
 
 Si inter tot funera popularium meorum, 
 anno tarn gravi ac pestilenti, abreptum me 
 quoque, ut scribis, ex rumore pnesertim ali- 
 quo credidisti, minim non est; atque ille ru- 
 mor apud vestros, ut videtur, homines, si ex 
 eo quod de salute mea solicit! essent incre- 
 buit, non displicet; indicium enim suse erga 
 me benevolentia3 fuisse existimo. Sed Dei 
 benignitate, qui tutum mihi receptum in 
 agris paraverat, et vivo adhuc et valeo; uti- 
 nam ne inutilis, quicquid muneris in h&c vit& 
 restat inihi peragendum. Tibi ver6 tarn longo 
 intervallo venisse in mentem mei, pergratum 
 est: quanquam, prout rem verbis exornas, 
 praebere aliquem suspicioncm videris, obli- 
 tum mei te potius esse, qui tot virtutum di- 
 versarum conjugium in me, ut scribis, admi- 
 rere. Ego certe ex tot conjugiis numero- 
 sam nimis prolem expavescerem, nisi con- 
 staret in re arcta rebusque duris virtutes ali 
 maxime et vigere: tametsi earum una non ita 
 bellfe charitatem hospitii mihi rcddidit: quam 
 
5l6 LIFE OF MILTON. 
 
 enim politicam tu vocas, ego pietatem in pa- 
 triatn dictam abs te mallem, ea me pulchro 
 nomine delinitum prope, ut ila dicam, ex- 
 patriavit. Reliquarum tamen chorus clare 
 concinit. Patria est, ubicunque est benfe. 
 Finem faciam, si hoc prius abs te impelra- 
 vero, ut, si quid mendosfe descriptum aut non 
 interpunctum repereris, id puero, qui hacc 
 excepit, latine prorsus nescienti velis impu- 
 tare; cui singulas plane literulas annumerare 
 non sine miseri dictans cogebar. Tua in- 
 terim viri merita, quern ego adolescentem 
 spei eximiae cognovi, ad tarn honestum in 
 principis grati provexisse te locum, gaudeo, 
 caeteraque fausta omnia et cupio tibi, et 
 spero. Vale. 
 
 Londini, Aug. \5, 
 
 To the most accomplished Peter Heimbach, Conn- 
 sellor of State to the Elector ofBrandenburgh. 
 
 " That, in a year so pestilential and so 
 fatal as the present, amidst the deaths of so 
 many of my compatriots, you should have be- 
 lieved me likewise, as you write me word, in 
 consequence too of some rumour or other, to 
 have fallen a victim, excites in me no sur- 
 prise: and if that rumour owed its currency 
 
LIFE OF MILTOtf. 517 
 
 among you, as it seems to have done, to an 
 anxiety for my welfare, I feel flattered by 
 it as an instance of your friendly regard. 
 Through the goodness of God however, who 
 had provided me with a safe retreat in the 
 country, I still live and am well ; and, 
 would that I could add, not incompetent to 
 any duty which it may be my further des- 
 tiny to discharge. 
 
 But that after so long an interval I 
 should have recurred to your remembrance, 
 is highly gratifying to me; though to judge 
 from your eloquent embellishments of the 
 matter, when you profess your admiration of 
 so many different virtues united in my single 
 person, you seem to furnish some ground for 
 suspecting that I have indeed escaped from 
 your recollection. From such a number of 
 unions, in fact, I should have cause to dread 
 a progeny too numerous, were it not ad- 
 mitted that in disgrace and adversity the vir- 
 tues principally increase and flourish. One 
 of them however has not made me any very 
 grateful return for her entertainment; for 
 she whom you call the political, (though I 
 would rather that you had termed her love 
 of country,) after seducing me with her fine 
 name, has nearly, if I may so express myself, 
 
 
518 LIFE OF MILTON. 
 
 deprived me of a country. The rest indeed 
 harmonise more perfectly together. Our 
 country is wherever we can live as we ought. 
 
 Before I conclude, I must prevail on you 
 to impute whatever incorrectness of ortho- 
 graphy or of punctuation you may discover 
 in this epistle to my young amanuensis; whose 
 total ignorance of Latin has imposed on me 
 the disagreeable necessity of actually dic- 
 tating to him every individual letter. 
 
 That your deserts as a man, consistently 
 with the high promise with which you raised 
 my expectations in your youth, should have 
 elevated you to so eminent a station in your 
 Sovereign's favour gives me the most sincere 
 pleasure; and I fervently pray and trust that 
 you may proceed and prosper. Farewell!" 
 
 London, August 15, 1666". 
 
 In the middle of the year 1666, Milton, 
 as we have seen, had completed his two 
 sacred poems: but it was not till after the 
 lapse of another twelvemonth that he com- 
 mitted either of them to the press. His con- 
 tract for the copy-right of Paradise Lost, 
 with Samuel Simmons the bookseller, is 
 dated April 27, 1667; and in the course of 
 that year, the first edition of this grand re- 
 
LIFE OF MILTON. 519 
 
 >sult of intellectual power was given to the 
 world." 1 
 
 Much surprise and concern have been 
 discovered at the small pecuniary benefit, 
 which the author was permitted to derive 
 from this proud display of his genius, and on 
 the slow and laborious progress with which 
 the work won its way to public estimation. 
 To us, in the utmost cultivation of taste and 
 accustomed to admire the Paradise Lost with- 
 out any reference to its author or to the age 
 in which it appeared, it must certainly seem 
 deplorable that the copy-right of such a com- 
 position should be sold for the actual pay- 
 ment of five pounds, and the contingent pay- 
 ment, on the sale of two thousand six hun- 
 dred copies, of two other equal sums. But 
 if we would regard ourselves as placed in the 
 middle of the seventeenth century and im- 
 mersed in all the party violence of that mi- 
 serable period, we should rather be inclined 
 to wonder at the venturous liberality of the 
 bookseller, who would give even this small 
 consideration for the poem of a man living 
 under the heaviest frown of the times, in 
 whom the poet had long been forgotten in 
 
 m It was first published without the name of the purchaser as 
 its printer: but in the subsequent year it received a new title-page 
 in which the name of S. Simmons was inserted in its proper place. 
 
520 LIFE OF MILTO1ST. 
 
 the polemic, and who now tendered an ex- 
 periment in verse of which it was impossible 
 that the purchaser should be able to appre- 
 ciate the value, or should not be suspicious 
 of the danger. 
 
 Our shame and regret for the slow ap- 
 prehensions of our forefathers, with respect 
 to the merits of this illustrious production, 
 are still more unwarranted than those which 
 have been expressed for the parsimony of the 
 bookseller. Before the entire revolution of 
 two years, at a time when learning and the 
 love of reading were far from being in their 
 present wide diffusion through the commu- 
 nity, thirteen hundred copies of the Paradise 
 Lost were absorbed into circulation. In five 
 years after this period a second edition of the 
 poem was issued; and, after another interval 
 of four years, a third was conceded to the 
 honourable demands of the public. As we 
 may fairly conclude that, according to the 
 original stipulation of the bookseller, each of 
 these impressions consisted off fifteen hundred 
 copies, we shall find that in the space of little 
 more than eleven years four thousand five 
 hundred individuals of the British community 
 were possessed of sufficient discrimination to 
 become the purchasers of the Paradise Lost. 
 Before the expiration of twenty years the 
 
LIFE OF MILTON. 521 
 
 poem passed through six editions, a circum- 
 stance which abundantly proves that it was 
 not destitute of popularity before it obtained 
 its full and final dominion over the public 
 taste from the patronage of Somers, and still 
 more from the criticism of Addison. 
 
 When the great epic was completely pre- 
 pared for the press, its birth was on the point 
 of being intercepted by the malignity, or 
 rather perhaps by the perverse sagacity of the 
 licenser; whose quick nostril distinguished 
 the scent of treason in that well known simile 
 of the sun in the first book : 
 
 As when the sun new-risen 
 
 Looks through the horizontal misty air, 
 
 Shorn of his beams j or, from behind the moon, 
 
 In dim eclipse disastrous twilighUsheds 
 
 On half the nations, and with fear of change 
 
 Perplexes monarchs." 
 
 The press was certainly in safe hands 
 when it was in those of the present licenser, 
 Mr. Tomkyns; for an eye, which could dive 
 
 n The office of licenser, which had been abolished during the 
 usurpation of Cromwell, had now been restored, for a limited 
 time, by an act of parliament passed in 1662. By this act the 
 press, with reference to its different productions, was placed 
 under the dominion of the Judges, some of the Officers of State, 
 and the Archbishop of Canterbury. Poetry falling within the 
 province of the latter, the fate of Paradise Lost was committed 
 to the judgment of the reverend Thomas Tomkyns, one of the 
 ch:iplains"of Archbishop Sheldon, 
 
522 LIFE OF MILTON. 
 
 so deeply and could discern so finely was 
 not likely to be baffled by the most pro- 
 found, or to be eluded by the most subtle 
 and aerial mischief. In the present instance 
 there were many points on which the licenser's 
 suspicion would rest. " The sun new risen/' 
 was an apt representative of Charles, lately 
 seated on his throne: " The horizontal misty 
 air/' by which he was "shorn of his beams/' was 
 the political atmosphere thickened with the 
 breaths of republicans and levellers, who did 
 what they could to diminish the king's glory: 
 " the moon/' by whose intervention the sun 
 was eclipsed, might be the memory of Crom- 
 well which darkened the fame of Charles, 
 and, by bringing before the popular mind 
 the man who acquired Dunkirk, would natu- 
 rally place him in eclipsing opposition to the 
 man who sold it. In the " disastrous twi- 
 light/' which was " shed over half the na- 
 tions," was clearly to be seen the tyranny of 
 Charles, by which the Scots, the northern 
 half of the nation, were reduced to a most 
 calamitous condition; and finally, Charles 
 was a monarch, and might perhaps be " per- 
 plexed with fear of change;" or, if the licenser's 
 acuteness should discover in this last appli- 
 cation of the simile a confusion of the cause 
 with the effect, and should consequently 
 
LITE OF MILTON. 523 
 
 scruple to admit it, the monarchs whom the 
 sun in eclipse thus perplexes might be the two 
 archbishops, in gloomy and trembling ap- 
 prehension on their metropolitan thrones, 
 in consequence of their master's unpopular, 
 and of course dangerous conduct. So far 
 therefore are we from being surprised at the 
 good licenser's hesitation in the case before 
 vis, that we are rather inclined to blame him 
 for negligence of duty, when he permitted a 
 passage so pregnant with political rancour to 
 issue under his imprimatur into the world. 
 
 The time, during which this noble poern 
 engaged the attention of its author, cannot 
 be very accurately ascertained. We have al- 
 ready remarked, on the authority of Philips, 
 that it formed a part of Milton's intellectual 
 occupation immediately after the termination 
 of his controversy with Morus, about the end 
 of the year 1655; and Richardson, from some 
 expressions in a letter of the author's to Henry 
 Oldenburgh in 1654, is inclined to refer its 
 commencement to an earlier date. As it 
 was certainly finished in 1665, we may ven- 
 ture to assign the term of ten or of eleven 
 years as that within the limits of which it 
 was composed. If we now reflect on the 
 
 p.w. vi. 127. 
 
524 LIFE OF MILTON. 
 
 poet's situation during one half of this time; 
 if we consider that he was not only blind and 
 advanced far towards old age, but was also 
 the object of factious hostility and of popular 
 neglect; that, deprived of part of his small 
 fortune, he was saved from actual poverty 
 only by the contraction of his wants; that 
 he was " encompassed with dangers as well 
 as with darkness;" and, though snatched, as 
 it were by miracle, from the vengeance of the 
 ]aw, was still fearful of the assassin's p dagger; 
 
 P The fact is recorded by Richardson. (( He was in perpe- 
 tual terror of being assassinated ; though he had escaped the 
 talons of the law he knew he had made himself enemies in 
 abundance. He was so dejected, he would lie awake whole 
 nights, &c. This Dr. Tancred Robinson had from a relation of 
 Milton's, Mrs. Walker of the Temple." (Richard. Remarks, &c. 
 p. xciv.) 
 
 In his note on that line, " In darkness and with dangers 
 compass'd round," the same writer observes, " This is explained 
 by a piece of secret history for which we have good authority. 
 Paradise Lost was written after the restoration when Milton 
 apprehended himself to be in danger of his life, first, from public 
 vengeance, (having been very deeply engaged against the royal 
 party,) and, when safe by pardon, from- private malice and re- 
 sentment. He was always in fear; much alonej and slept ill. 
 When restless, he would ring for the person, who wrote for 
 him, (which was his daughter commonly,) to write what he 
 composed, which sometimes flowed with great ease." Id. p. 2()1. 
 
 These apprehensions were not those of a weak mind, or felt 
 without sufficient cause. The murder of Doryslaus and of As- 
 cham, at the Hague and at Madrid, had shown to the world that 
 royalist vengeance could assassinate j and the fate of Ludlow* 
 
LIFE OF MILTON 525 
 
 that he was unprovided with any assistance 
 in his literary labours, but that of a girl, or 
 of an occasional friend to read to him, and 
 to hold the pen as he dictated, we cannot 
 be otherwise than, astonished at the boldness 
 which could undertake, and at the inex- 
 haustible energy of mind which could carry 
 to its accomplishment a poem so extended 
 in its plan, and so magnificent in its execu- 
 tion as the Paradise Lost. 
 
 The origin of this great production, or 
 the first spark which kindled the idea in the 
 poet's mind, has been made the subject of cu- 
 rious, and perhaps over-anxious inquiry. On 
 his visit to England in 1727, Voltaire suggested 
 that the hint of the Paradise Lost had been 
 supplied by the Adamo a poor drama, stuffed 
 with bombast, conceit, and allegory, written 
 by one Andreini a strolling player of Italy. 
 This suggestion by the lively Frenchman ob- 
 tained little regard at the time when it was 
 offered; and it has since been contemptuously 
 rejected by Dr. Johnson. From its adoption 
 however by Mr. Hayley and Dr. Warton, it 
 has acquired some new importance; and, 
 
 pursued with daggers into the heart of Switzerland, fully demon- 
 strated that, at the time of which we are speaking party rancour 
 had resigned no portion of its revengeful and sanguinary atrocity. 
 
526 LIFE OF MILTON. 
 
 when fully examined, it appears by no means 
 to be destitute of probability. 
 
 Paradise Lost, as we know not only on 
 the testimony of Philips but from the author's 
 MSS, q preserved in the library of Trinity coll. 
 Cambridge, was first designed in the form of 
 a tragedy, to be opened with the address of 
 Satan to the sun, now inserted in the begin- 
 ning of the fourth book of the poem. In the 
 different schemes which we possess of this 
 projected drama, we observe various allego- 
 
 i These MSS, of which we have before had occasion to speak, 
 were found among some papers belonging to Sir Henry Newton 
 Puckering, who was a great benefactor to Trinity Coll. library. 
 They were subsequently collected, and bound by the care and 
 at the expence of Mr. Clarke, at that time a fellow of Trin. 
 Coll. and afterwards one of the King's Counsel. These MSS 
 consist, in the author's own hand, of two draughts of his letter 
 to a friend who had pressed him to engage in some profession j 
 several of his juvenile poems, a few of his sonnets, and a variety 
 of dramatic schemes, some on the subject of Paradise Lost, and 
 many on other subjects taken from sacred or profane his- 
 tory. In these MSS are numerous interlineations and correc- 
 tions j stops are seldom used 5 and the verses frequently begin 
 with small letters. Among these papers are copies of some of 
 the sonnets, composed after the author's loss of sight, which are 
 written by different hands. 
 
 Dr. Pearce, who was afterwards bishop of Rochester, in the 
 preface to his remarks on Bentley's edition of the Paradise Lost, 
 supposes that Milton derived the hint of his poem from an Italian 
 tragedy called II Paradiso persoj which Dr. Pierce, however, had 
 not seen, and which we know of no person who has seen. Pre- 
 face to Remarks, &c. p. /. 
 
LIFE OF MILTON. 52? 
 
 rical beings introduced among its persons, 
 and on comparing them with those in An- 
 dreini's production, which, as Mr. Hayley 
 properly remarks, is not so contemptible a 
 work as we have been taught to consider it, 
 we shall find it difficult to refer the strong re- 
 semblance, which will strike us, to the effect 
 of chance, or to believe that Milton could 
 have drawn the schemes in question if he had 
 never seen the Adamo of Andreini. As we are 
 assured however, by the passages which we 
 have noticed in the Damon, that Arthur or 
 some other British hero was intended by the 
 author after his return from Italy for the 
 subject of his epic muse, it seems not impro- 
 bable that he was fostering this idea at the 
 time when he was revolving the plan of his 
 sacred drama; and that he thus meditated 
 the execution of two great and distinct poetic 
 compositions. It is uncertain in what happy 
 moment he determined on assigning to the 
 Paradise Lost the honour of being his chief 
 work, and of placing this divine theme upon 
 the summit of the Aonian mount. 
 
 For the adoption of blank verse, as the 
 instrument of his in use, he had not only the 
 example of Trissino's Italia Liberata, of which 
 probably he never thought, but that also of 
 
528 LIFE OP MILTON. 
 
 Tasso/ by which it is fair to conclude that 
 he was principally influenced, if the success- 
 ful attempt in his own language of the illus- 
 trious Surrey should not be allowed to have 
 impressed him with the determining bias. 
 
 It does not belong to the plan of the pre- 
 sent work to enter into a regular examina- 
 tion of the beauties and the defects of the Pa- 
 radise Lost; and they have so frequently un- 
 dergone the investigation of acute and power- 
 ful minds, that nothing more can be expected 
 on the ground than a few straggling ears after 
 a well gathered harvest. If any part of this 
 admirable poem has still reason to complain 
 of defective justice, it is that of its diction 
 and its numbers. These seem to be consi- 
 dered by Addison rather as the subjects of 
 apology and defence than of praise ; and 
 Johnson has shown himself to be wholly un- 
 qualified for the task of appreciating their 
 worth. From the power of Milton the Eng- 
 lish language has obtained a sublimity ade- 
 quate to the loftiest conceptions of the hu- 
 
 f Tasso is celebrated by his friend and biographer, the Mar- 
 quis of Villa, for the introduction of blank verse into the Italian 
 poetry. Tasso wrote a poem without rhyme on the Creation. 
 
 The Earl of Surrey translated into blank verse the second and 
 the fourth book of the Mneid. 
 
LIFE OF MILTON 529 
 
 man mind; and a variety and a richness of 
 harmony on which his poetic successors, in* 
 eluding the great Dryden himself, have been 
 utterly unable to improve. 
 
 One of the principal defects of the poem 
 is occasioned by the ambitious attempt of 
 the poet to give sensible action to the nega- 
 tive idea of spirit. It is an opinion, in itself 
 most probable and entertained by many 
 eminent divines, that the Deity is the only 
 perfectly disembodied spirit in the universe. 
 Limited agency indeed seems to be incom- 
 patible with a substance which, occupying 
 no space, is without locality; which is con- 
 sequently every where and entirely present, 
 and which therefore must necessarily be ca- 
 pable of acting every where at the same 
 instant with an equal and undivided force. 
 The highest intelligences then, who approach 
 the most nearly to the throne of the Supreme, 
 must be supposed to be invested with bodies, 
 and may consequently without impropriety 
 or inconsistency be introduced into the 
 action of dramatic or of epic song. But 
 Milton was resolved to make his angelic 
 beings spirits, in the higher acceptation of 
 the word spirit, and has of course been led 
 into difficulties and contrarieties. With bo- 
 
530 LIFE OF MILTON 
 
 dies defined, though not restrained as to di- 
 mension and shape, operating with successive 
 action, obnoxious to corporeal pain and to 
 impressions from external matter, these super- 
 human agents are declared to be " incorpo- 
 real spirits;" and are, on some occasions, en- 
 dued with the peculiar properties of spiritual 
 substances. 3 In the sixth book this embar- 
 rassment more evidently or rather more strik- 
 ingly occurs; and I agree with Dr. John- 
 son, who has remarked the incongruity, in 
 placing this book, astonishingly sublime as 
 are many of its passages, among the least 
 happy of the twelve which constitute the 
 poem. 
 
 On the introduction of the persons of 
 Sin and Death, and the action which is at- 
 tributed to them, I must confess myself to 
 dissent in opinion from the able critic whom 
 I have just named, as well as from Addison; 
 to whose taste, if not to whose power of in- 
 tellect, I feel much more inclined to bow in 
 submissive deference. When he formed these 
 personages and blended them with the agents 
 of his poem, the poet appears to me to have 
 
 1 When Satan in the toad affects the mind of Eve, and pre- 
 sents what pictures he pleases to her imagination, he is evi- 
 dently spirit which can blend with spirit, and act immediately 
 upon it without the intervention of the bodily organs. 
 
LIFE OF MILTON. 531 
 
 availed himself of an indisputable privilege of 
 his art; and, having endued them with con- 
 sistent action, to be no more censurable for 
 their creation than for that of Moloch or of 
 Belial, with whom in fact they exist in equally 
 substantial being. The whole of the ma- 
 chinery of Homer has been explained into 
 allegory; and the Grecian bard, when he de- 
 solates the camp of the Greeks with the arrows 
 of Apollo, is as open to reprehension as the 
 English, when he opposes the progress of 
 Satan with the dart of Death: in the first in- 
 stance, the plain fact to be related is the 
 ravage of a pestilence; and in the last, the 
 danger of annihilation to which the adven- 
 turous Archangel was exposed by the attempt 
 to break from his prison. If any authority 
 were wanted to support Milton in this parti- 
 cular exertion of his poetic prerogative, it 
 might easily be obtained from the sacred 
 scriptures. In these. Sin is in more than one 
 place distinctly personified ; and Death is not 
 only described as the last enemy whom the 
 Son of God is to vanquish, -but, in a dread- 
 fully sublime passage in the Apocalypse, is 
 invested with specific and formidable agency, 
 " mounted upon a pale horse, with all hell fol- 
 lowing in his train/' 
 
 With Addison, I have always regretted 
 
532 LIFE OF MILTON. 
 
 the discontinuance of the story in vision, 
 at the commencement of the twelfth book; 
 and have regarded the circumstance, whe- 
 ther resulting from apprehended difficulty 
 or from error in the great poet's judgment, 
 as forming a blemish in the work and con- 
 ducting it with abated vigour to the goal. 
 But to suggest the defects of this glorious 
 poem would be a short labour, while a dis- 
 play of its beauties would occupy a volume. 
 With respect to grandeur of conception, it 
 must be regarded as the first, and to the gene- 
 ral exhibition of intellectual power, as un- 
 questionably the second among all the pro- 
 ductions of human genius; while, in the sub- 
 ordinate excellences of composition, it will 
 be found to yield the precedency only to the 
 wonderful Iliad/ or to the august and po- 
 lished JEneid. If we reflect indeed on the 
 greatly inferior language, in which the Eng- 
 lish poet has been compelled to embody the 
 creatures of his brain, we shall be much more 
 surprised at the approach in perfection which 
 he has made to the poetic diction of the two 
 mighty masters of heroic song, than at his 
 
 u When I make this assertion I am not ignorant of the great 
 and daring imagination of Dante, of the sportive and affluent 
 fancy of Ariosto; of the powerful yet regulated and classic genius 
 of Tasso. 
 
LIFE OF MILTON. 533 
 
 acknowledged inability to exalt the beauty 
 and harmony of his muse into a doubtful 
 competition with theirs. 
 
 In the second edition of the Paradise 
 Lost, which was published, as we have al- 
 ready suggested, in 1674, the author divided 
 the seventh and the tenth book, for the pur- 
 pose of breaking the length of their narra- 
 tion, each into two; and thus changed the 
 original distribution of his work from ten 
 into twelve books. On this new arrange- 
 ment, the addition of a few lines became ne- 
 cessary to form a regular opening to the 
 eighth and the twelfth book; and these nine 
 verses,* for such is their number, with six 
 
 x The additional Lines are the following ones included between 
 the inverted commas " 
 
 BOOR VUI. 
 
 " The angel ended, and in Adam's ear 
 tf So charming left his voice, that he awhile 
 Thought him still speaking; still stood fix'd to hear: 
 " Then as new waked" thus gratefully replied." 
 
 BOOK XII. 
 
 " As one who on his journey bates at noon 
 " Though bent on speed: so here th' Archangel paused 
 " Betwixt the world destroy 'd, and world restored : 
 " If Adam aught perhaps might interpose ; 
 " Then with transition sweet, new speech resumes"- 
 
 BOOK. V. v. 637. 
 
 They eat, they drink, and <f in communion sweet 
 ff Quaff immortality and joy, secure 
 
534 LIFE OF MILTON. 
 
 others, inserted partly in the fifth book and 
 partly in the eleventh, constituted all the 
 alterations deemed necessary by the poet 
 in that mighty production of his mind, on 
 which his fame with posterity was princi- 
 pally to rest and which formed the great and 
 the crowning exploit of his life. The Paradise 
 Lost therefore may be contemplated with 
 more \vonder as springing, like another Pal- 
 las, in a state of full maturity from the head 
 of its mighty father, and proudly relinquish- 
 ing every subsequent demand on him for the 
 assistance of parental affection. I notice 
 this circumstance indeed, which has been 
 remarked before me by Fenton, rather for 
 its curiosity than to detract from the merit 
 of those, who make their advances to rela- 
 tive perfection by frequent and laborious re- 
 vision. The final excellence of the work is 
 all with which the world is concerned; and 
 the existence of the mental power, which 
 
 " Of surfeit, where full measure only bounds 
 Excess," before th' all-bounteous king, &c. 
 
 BOOK XI. v. 484. 
 
 " Demoniac phrenzy, moaping melancholy," 
 " And moon-struck madness, pining atrophy. 
 if Marasmus, and wide-wasting pestilence." 
 
 V.551. 
 
 Of rend'ring up, ' ' and patiently attend 
 My dissolution," &c. 
 
LIFE OF MILTON. 535 
 
 eventually accomplishes the object, is all that 
 respects the reputation of the writer. 
 
 That, under the disadvantage of blind- 
 ness, the poet should be able to preserve en- 
 tire the combination of such a poem as the 
 Paradise Lost, is indeed a just subject of 
 surprise. In compositions of any length, in 
 which strict unity of design is required, the 
 author, after the first construction of his fable, 
 has his papers before him to correct those acci- 
 dental deviations from his course, into which 
 he may unwarily have been betrayed. But 
 without this resource against error, and with 
 a very inadequate substitute for it in the occa- 
 sional readings of a friend, Milton must have 
 retained in his memory all the intricacies of 
 his fable; and have seen them all, during the 
 time of composition, in one strong point of 
 concentrated vision. Through the whole ex- 
 tent of his poem no incongruity is to be de- 
 tected; and all the various lines are drawn 
 with infallible rectitude to their just 7 point. 
 
 y A modern French critic (Le Harpe in his Lyceum, vol. xiv.^ 
 calls the Paradise Lost a shapeless production, a poem which 
 has neither course nor plan 5 and which joins to many other 
 faults that of terminating at the end of the fifth canto, so that 
 it is impossible to wade through what follows without languor ! ! ! 
 To what cause are we to impute this strange language of the 
 critic ? It seems to argue the most entire ignorance of his sub- 
 ject in union with the most consummate conceit: but it may 
 
536 LIFE OF MILTON. 
 
 Bentley indeed imagined that he had disco- 
 vered inconsistency in the relations, in dif- 
 ferent parts of the poem, of the expulsion of 
 the rebel Angels from heaven : but the acute- 
 ness of the great critic, which had been so 
 illustriously displayed in a variety of preced- 
 ing instances, failed him in this; as it did in 
 almost every other when it was exercised on 
 the Paradise Lost. z In the sixth book, the 
 apostate Angels are certainly driven into the 
 deep by the sole might of the Messiah: but 
 although the army of the faithful, which had 
 before been engaged in the combat, 
 
 . <e silent stood, 
 Eye-witnesses of his Almighty acts," 
 
 proceed from nothing more than the wish of propitiating po- 
 pular regard by the sacrifice of a majestic foe on the altar of na- 
 tional vanity. 
 
 z The great Bentley, when he undertook the editing of Mil- 
 ton, was far advanced in age, and soon after this work, which 
 formed his last publication, his faculties discovered very evident 
 decline. In many of his former works he has displayed a vigour 
 and sagacity of mind, an extent and accuracy of erudition which 
 are truly wonderful, and which, perhaps, have never been ex- 
 ceeded. But his edition of Milton, though it exhibits many 
 characters of the great critic, must be pronounced to be alto- 
 gether an egregious failure. To the critical sagacity of Bentley 
 may be applied what Virgil says of the sword of Metiscus. 
 " Idque diu dum terga dabant palantia Teucri 
 
 Suffecit: postquam arma Dei ad Vulcania ventum> 
 
 Mortalis mucro, glacies ceu futilis, ictu 
 
 Dissiluit." 
 
LIFE OF MILTON. 53? 
 
 and advanced to meet him on his returning 
 from the victory, it is not asserted that his 
 immediate ministers, the " ten thousand thou- 
 sand saints " a who attended him from the 
 throne of God, did not pursue the enemy in 
 their fall, and " hang on their broken rear:" 
 the contrary, indeed, seems to be implied 
 when it is said that 
 
 " Eternal wrath 
 Burnt after them to the bottomless pit." 
 
 When Satan therefore in the first book ob- 
 serves, 
 
 " But see the angry victor hath recall'd 
 His ministers of vengeance and pursuit 
 Back to the gates of heaven ;" 
 
 and when Chaos, in the second, declares that 
 he saw as, 
 
 " Heaven 
 
 Pour'd out by millions her victorious bands 
 Pursuing." 
 
 no contradiction is necessarily intimated. 
 
 But admitting that these accounts were 
 irreconcileable with the fact, as it is related 
 by Raphael, the difficulty would vanish when 
 we considered the persons by whom the va- 
 rying circumstances are mentioned. Could 
 an accurate report of such an event be ex- 
 pected from a personification of Chaos, to 
 
 a Par. Lost, vi.76;. 
 
538 LIFE OF MILTON. 
 
 whom the uproar and the tumult of a rout 
 which " incumbered him with ruin/' and 
 made him sensible of " tenfold confusion," 
 must have been the leading if not the sole 
 object of regard? or from beings under the 
 overwhelming astonishment attributed to the 
 
 j 
 
 rebels at this tremendous crisis of their fate, 
 when " ten thousand thunders infixed plagues 
 in their souls/' when they were " pursued 
 with terrours and with furies/' and when their 
 senses were so confounded that they lay for 
 nine days in a state of complete oblivion on 
 " the fiery surge which received them falling 
 from the precipice of heaven?" Their over- 
 throw however is uniformly ascribed to the 
 thunders of their adversary, with the power 
 of whose " dire arms" they were till then un- 
 acquainted; and whose " red right hand" had 
 been exerted " to plague them/' The cohe- 
 rency therefore of the fable in this wonder- 
 ful poem must be allowed to be perfect; 
 and as a cause of surprise, with reference to 
 the particular situation of the author, to be 
 exceeded only by an equal consistency dis- 
 coverable in the Iliad; if in truth that 
 mighty intellectual effort be as certainly the 
 work of a blind, as it was of a single man. b 
 
 b This is spoken with reference to some extravagances, though 
 not perhaps absolute novelties of opinion, which have lately 
 
LIFE OF MILTON. 539 
 
 Much has been said on the unequal flow 
 of Milton's genius; and by some it has been 
 represented as under the influence of parti- 
 cular seasons, while by others it has been 
 regarded as the effect of immediate and po- 
 sitive inspiration. Philips declares that his 
 uncle's poetic faculty was vivid only in the 
 winter, and Toland assigns the spring as the 
 season of its peculiar activity; while Richard- 
 son, with a proper respect to the ardent cha- 
 racter of the author's mind, c expresses a doubt 
 whether such a work could be suffered for any 
 considerable period to stand absolutely still. 
 
 Philips, to whom his relation was accus- 
 tomed to show the poem in its progress, in- 
 forms us that, in consequence of not having 
 
 been supported by a few German scholars. These learned men, 
 who are endued with microscopic vision, 
 
 " To inspect a mite, not comprehend the heaven," 
 
 would wish us to believe that the Iliad was composed at different 
 periods by different rhapsodists, and was not originally committed 
 to writing. By any person capable of comprehending the full 
 force of the internal evidence suggested by the Iliad, these fancies 
 must be immediately rejected as utterly unworthy of attention. 
 
 c In one of his letters to his friend Deodati, Milton says 
 that when he was engaged in any study, he was urged to prose- 
 cute it with his full vigour and application, and was impatient 
 of interruption in his pursuit. " Meum sic est ingenium, nulla 
 ut mora, nulla quies, nulla ferme illius rei cura aut cogitatio dis- 
 tineat, quoad pervadam quo feror, et grandem aliquam studio^ 
 rum meorum quasi periodum conficiam." * 
 
 * P.W. vi. 114. 
 
540 LITE OP* MILTON. 
 
 seen any verses for some time on the advance 
 of summer, he requested to know the cause 
 of what appeared to him to be extraordinary, 
 and was told in reply by the poet, that " his 
 vein never flowed happily, but from the au- 
 tumnal equinox to the vernal; and that what 
 he attempted at other times was never to his 
 satisfaction, though he courted his fancy ever 
 so much." d In opposition to this, and in sup- 
 port of his own opinion, Toland adduces the 
 information given to him by a friend of Mil- 
 ton's and the testimony of the bard himself, 
 who in his beautiful elegy on the arrival of 
 spring speaks of this delightful season as re- 
 novating and invigorating his genius. 6 While 
 
 d On this passage from Philips Dr. Johnson, forced as he is 
 to admit the unequal and uncertain flow of the human imagi- 
 natin, insults over the weak fancies of Milton, and the still 
 weaker credulity of his biographers. This, Dr. Johnson was at 
 liberty to do: but he goes rather too far when he charges 
 Milton with holding an opinion, respecting the general decay 
 and old age of Nature, which Milton has himself expressly con- 
 tradicted. [See his Latin verses with the title of <r Naturam non 
 pati senium."] 
 
 e I will insert the passage in question from Milton's beautiful 
 elegy, with a translation of it by him to whose memory I have 
 indulged myself by inscribing the present work. I had asked my 
 admirable son for a version of the entire elegy : but his diffidence 
 had induced him to refuse what my acquaintance with his talents 
 and taste had impelled me to request. Among his papers however 
 was found after his decease a considerable part of the translation, 
 executed in such a manner as to make the circumstance of his 
 not having completed it a subject of real regret. Though the 
 
LIFE OF MILTON. 541 
 
 the former part of this evidence cannot be 
 
 last polishing touches of his pen are evidently wanting, I persuade 
 myself that my readers will perceive sufficient beauty in the lines, 
 which I submit to them, to justify me for thus bringing forward 
 what the modesty and fine taste of the writer unquestionably des- 
 tined to oblivion. I transcribe only that part of his translation 
 which relates immediately to my subject : but what remains of 
 the imperfect work is in a style of equal merit. 
 
 IN ADVENTUM VER1S. 
 
 In se perpetuo Tempus revolubile gyro 
 
 Jam revocat Zephyros vere tepente novos : 
 Induiturque brevem Tellus reparata juventam; 
 
 Jamque soluta gelu dulce virescit humus. 
 Pallor? an et nobis redeunt in carmina vires ; 
 
 Ingeniumque mihi munere veris adest? 
 Munere veris adest ; iterumque vigescit ab illo; 
 
 (Quis putet?) atque aliquod jam sibi poscit opug. 
 Castalis ante oculos, bifidumque cacumen oberratj 
 
 Et mihi Pyrenen somnia nocte ferunt : 
 Concitaque arcano fervent mihi pectora motu; 
 
 Et furor, et sonitus me sacer intus agit. 
 Delius ipse venit: video Peneide lauro 
 
 Irnplicitos crines: Delius ipse venit. 
 Jam mihi mens liquidi raptatur in ardua coeli j 
 
 Perque vagas nubes corpore liber eo. 
 Perque umbras, perque antra feror penetralia vatum, 
 
 Et mihi fana patent interiora Deum : 
 Intuiturque animus toto quid agatur Olympoj 
 
 Nee fbg'unt oculos Tartara caeca meos. 
 Quid tarn grande son at distento spiritus ore ? 
 
 Quid parit haec rabies ? quid sacer iste furor ? 
 Ver mihi quod dedit ingenium, cantabitur illo: 
 
 Profuerint isto reddita dona modo. 
 Jam, Philomela, tuos foliis adoperta novellis 
 
 Instituis modules dum silet omne nemus. 
 
542 LIFE OF MILTON. 
 
 poised against that of the author's confidential 
 
 Urbe ego, tu silva simul incipiamus utrique; 
 
 Et simul adventum veris uterque canat. 
 Veris, io ! rediere vices : celebremus honores 
 
 Veris, et hoc subeat Musa perermis opus. 
 
 ON THE ARRIVAL OF SPRING. 
 Now Time brings back on ever circling wing 
 Young Zephyrs, soft companions of the Spring : 
 And Earth revived in transient verdure glows, 
 Wooed by their whispers, and forgets her snows, 
 Am I deceived with kindred warmth imprest ? 
 Or does new genius swell within my breast? 
 Yes ! 'tis Spring s bounty that now prompts my tongue 
 To ask a subject worthy of my song. 
 Entranced in strange delight I wander o'er 
 The sacred regions of poetic lore, 
 Castalia's spring, Parnassus' forked height 5 
 My daily vision, and my dream by night. 
 Some rage divine my laboring bosom fires : 
 Some inward voice with thrilling notes inspires. 
 He comes ! great Phoebus comes ! I see from far 
 The floating radiance of his laurell'd hair. 
 My mind exulting spurns its mortal clayj 
 And springs aloft to seek the realms of day j 
 To drink the new-born beam; with wondering glance 
 To range the azure waste and starry dance. 
 O'er cavern'd rocks, Religion's pale abode, 
 And fanes, still murmuring with the inspiring God, 
 Amazed she roams, and looks all nature through j 
 And heaven and hell hide nothing from her view. 
 But what portends this swell? this rage divine? 
 This ardent soul which burns along my line ? 
 My grateful verse shall praise the bounteous Spring, 
 Who waked my breast and taught me how to sing. 
 Now Philomel essays her plaintive throat, 
 While raptured Silence listens to the note. 
 
LIFE OF MILTON. 543 
 
 pupil and nephew, the latter must be consi- 
 dered as too weak and uncertain to be in- 
 titled to any great regard. 
 
 When he celebrates the inspiration of 
 spring, Milton seems to be only following 
 the example of his poetic predecessors, and 
 to be writing with the taste of a classic ra- 
 ther than from his experience as a man. 
 This season, when nature starts from her 
 slumber and appears to exult in a species of 
 new life, has always supplied the Muse with 
 a favourite topic of description and pane- 
 gyric. Even in our northern climate, this 
 prime of the year has sufficient charms to 
 allure the susceptible imagination of the 
 poet; but under the glowing skies of Greece 
 and Italy it is accompanied with so many 
 striking and fascinating beauties as to be pos- 
 sessed of irresistible attraction. We are not 
 therefore surprised when we see it in the classic 
 page displayed with so much delightful ima- 
 gery, and find its vivifying efficacy extended 
 from the vegetable and the animal races to 
 the intellectual and imperial dynasty of man. 
 
 In praise of Spring, sweet bird ! you charm the plains : 
 In praise of Spring I tune my civic strains. 
 The blushing year in triumph comes along! 
 Haste! haste! to pay the tributary song. 
 
 CHARLES SYMMONS, inn. 
 
544 LIFE OF MILTON. 
 
 By man indeed subsisting in an abso- 
 lute state of nature, if we can imagine him 
 in such a state, its influence would pro- 
 bably be very sensibly felt; and the same 
 genial virtue, which awakens the music of 
 the woods and kindles the desires of the field, 
 would excite, as it is likely, the torpid in- 
 stincts and faculties of the human savage. 
 On artificial man however, withdrawn as 
 he is from nature by institution and by habit, 
 we do not believe that the seasons, otherwise 
 than as they may incidentally affect the 
 health, can be productive of the slightest con- 
 sequence. With respect to his body, we are 
 not sensible of any change which they effect, 
 and it is inconceivable that they can come 
 into contact with the mind through any other 
 medium than that of his corporeal organs. 
 The complete independence of the human 
 intellect, on the vicissitude of the seasons 
 and the varying aspect of the external world, 
 seems to be fully established by the expe- 
 rience of mankind, which has assured us that 
 the imagination has taken her loftiest flights, 
 and has painted her most brilliant scenery in 
 the close retirement of the writer's study, when 
 substituted light and heat have supplied the 
 absence or the deficiency of the sun. 
 

 LIFE OF MILTON. 545 
 
 We are satisfied therefore that the infor- 
 mation which Toland followed was erro- 
 neous, and we have only to consider with 
 what limitation we shall receive the account 
 given by Milton himself, as it is communi- 
 cated to us by his biographer and kinsman. 
 Philips. 
 
 That Milton's poetic power was subject 
 to those inequalities of flow, to which the 
 human fancy in its strongest or its w r eakest 
 existence is inevitably liable, cannot for an 
 instant be doubted. Like every man, who 
 has ever solicited this faculty of the mind, the 
 author of Paradise Lost would find it some- 
 times disobedient to his call, and sometimes 
 preventing it. Labour would often be inef- 
 fectual to obtain what often would be gra- 
 tuitously offered to him ; and his imagina- 
 tion, which at one instant would refuse a 
 flower to his most strenuous cultivation, would 
 at another shoot up into spontaneous and 
 abundant vegetation. In the intercourse with 
 the fancy this has been uniformly experienced ; 
 and, without the information supplied by 
 Richardson, we should have concluded that 
 with Milton some days would elapse undis- 
 tinguished by a verse, while on others the 
 great poet would dictate thirty or forty lines 
 under the impulse, as it were, of instant in- 
 
 2 N 
 
546 LITE OF MILTON. 
 
 spiration. This must be admitted therefore 
 not only as credible, but as certain; and, 
 proceeding a step farther* we may reason- 
 ably suppose that, during the augmented 
 heats of summer, in the close streets and 
 under the oppressive atmosphere of a large 
 city, these luminous moments would occur 
 more rarely and would glow with less effi- 
 cacious splendour. 
 
 Of the summer season then, during which 
 he was so seldom sensible of the sparkling 
 influences of fancy, he might be allowed to 
 speak as of a period in which " his vein never 
 flowed happily:" though we cannot believe 
 that for the whole interval between the vernal 
 and the autumnal equinox his power of 
 poetic composition was suspended and his 
 work absolutely at rest. Even if his fancy 
 were inert, his judgment would still be in 
 action; and when no part of the finishing 
 could be happily executed, the subject might 
 be revolved and the plan digested. In the 
 least brilliant instant the canvass might be 
 prepared to receive the future births of the 
 pencil. 
 
 Richardson, who records with affectionate 
 reverence the minutest circumstance which 
 he could discover respecting the object of 
 his biography, relates that the author of 
 
LIFE OF MILTON. 54? 
 
 the Paradise Lost, when he composed and 
 dictated in the day, was accustomed " to sit, 
 leaning backward, in an easy chair, with his 
 leg flung over the elbow of it:" that he fre- 
 quently composed in the night/ when his 
 unpremeditated verse would sometimes flow 
 in a torrent, under the impulse as it were of 8 
 some strange poetical fury; and that in these 
 peculiar moments of imagination his ama- 
 nuensis, who was generally his daughter, was 
 
 f The account given by his widow (see note p. 506) agrees 
 with this of Richardson's, respecting the circumstance of Mil- 
 ton's composing in the night., and dictating a number of lines in 
 continuity. 
 
 Observing on what is here related by Richardson, Dr. John- 
 son says, " That in this intellectual hour Milton called for his 
 daughter to secure what came, may be questioned j for un- 
 luckily it happens to be known that his daughters were never 
 taught to write." 
 
 It is unfortunate for Dr. J. that we have Aubrey's authority 
 in opposition to his. Aubrey, who possessed in this instance 
 every mean of the most authentic information, expressly tells 
 us that Milton's youngest daughter was his amanuensis. This 
 Dr. J. must have known: but, though truth was dear to him, 
 the depreciation of Milton was still dearer. When he passed 
 without notice the information given on this subject by Au- 
 brey, the Doctor availed himself of the very doubtful testimony 
 of Mrs. Foster. 
 
 s " With a certain Impetus and QEstro" are the words of 
 Richardson; whose language is too quaint, and frequently too in- 
 correct to be admitted without some modification into any neat 
 page. Of the two Latin words, which in this passage he has 
 rather inaccurately connected with " flowed," one is mispelt; 
 CEstrum being written by him 
 
548 LITE OF MILTON. 
 
 summoned by the bell to arrest the verses as 
 they came and to commit them to the secu- 
 rity of writing. 
 
 During the supposed inattention of the 
 public to the merits of his poem, Milton has 
 been represented as reposing in the conscious 
 dignity of worth, and appealing without emo- 
 tion from the injustice of his contemporaries 
 to the impartial award of posterity. The 
 magnanimity of Milton, which had been 
 ascertained on a variety of occasions, would 
 not, as we are confident, have deserted him 
 under this species of trial. In this instance 
 however its exertion was not demanded; for 
 the fortune of his work was such as to pre- 
 serve him from the shock of disappointment, 
 if not to elevate him with the transport of suc- 
 cess. The applauses of the few* whose judg- 
 ment he most valued, seem to have been 
 sufficiently warm and unanimous to assure 
 him that he had fully accomplished his ob- 
 ject; and might patiently await that louder 
 plaudit which could not finally be withheld. 
 
 We are ignorant of the precise time when 
 the celebrated epigram of Dryden was writ- 
 ten: but the encomiastic verses of Andrew 
 Marvell, and of Barrow the physician were 
 prefixed to the second edition of the Para- 
 dise Lost, and were probably composed soon 
 
LIFE OF MILTON. 549 
 
 after its first publication. To Lord Buck- 
 hurst, who subsequently became Earl of 
 Dorset, is ascribed the honour of introducing 
 it to general notice; for accidentally meet- 
 ing with it in Little Britain, where he was 
 in the pursuit of rare books, and being struck 
 with some of its passages, he immediately 
 purchased and sent it to Dryden, with a re- 
 quest for his opinion. Dryden's answer dis- 
 covered the strong feeling of one great poetic 
 mind excited by the exhibition of another. 
 " This man cuts us all out, and the ancients 
 too:" h and soon afterward, as Aubrey in- 
 forms us, the Laureat called upon Milton, 
 and solicited his permission to construct a 
 drama upon his epic; a permission which 
 the old bard readily gave, declaring that he 
 had no objection to the scheme " of tagging 
 his lines/' In the preface to this drama, or, 
 to speak with more precision, to this opera, 
 called " The State of Innocence and the Fall 
 of Man," which was not published during 
 Milton's life, Dryden is sufficiently liberal 
 
 h This anecdote, which is related by Richardson on authority 
 not easily to be questioned, has lately been discredited by Mr. 
 Malone, in his Life of Dryden, [p. 113, 114.] But the argu- 
 ments, adduced on this topic by Mr. M. are in themselves very 
 weak, and of no power against the testimony which they are 
 brought to overthrow. From the reply of Dryden in this in- 
 stance no inference can be drawn against his previous acquaint* 
 
550 LIFE OF MILTON. 
 
 in his acknowledgments to the majestic and 
 venerable poet, with whose materials he had 
 
 ance with the Paradise Lost and its author. Dryden might have 
 been intimate with this great Epic from its first embryon existence, 
 or with Milton from his cradle, and yet have said, " This man 
 cuts us all out, and the ancients too 5" and what is imputed to 
 the bookseller, as spoken by him on this occasion to the noble 
 peer, is by no means inconsistent with the fact as it is established, 
 of the general sale of the Paradise Lost: for the bookseller 
 only tells Lord Buckhurst that-" they," the copies of the poem 
 which were in his shop, ft lay on his hands as waste paper." 
 There happened, as it seems, to be no sale for the Paradise Lost 
 in the neighbourhood of Little Britain, and the twenty or thirty 
 or fifty copies perhaps which this bookseller had purchased, (and 
 these copies by the bye would be reckoned by the publisher among 
 the thirteen hundred which had passed off his hands, though not, as 
 this account demonstrates, into circulation,) still remained unsold, 
 I am sorry to remark that in the present instance Mr. Malone has 
 not observed his usual accuracy of statement ; for in his citation 
 from Richardson he has been guilty, inadvertently as I make no 
 doubt, of a very egregious mistake. The words of Richardson are, 
 " for they lay on his hands as waste paper:" but Mr. Malone has 
 changed " they" for a word of more specific import, and made 
 the bookseller say " the impression lay on his hands as waste 
 paper." On this misquotation, corrected, or rather still more 
 perverted into " almost the whole impression ," Mr. Malone founds 
 the whole strength of his pretended refutation. The other anec- 
 dote recorded by Richardson, of Sir John Denham's having 
 brought into the House of Commons a leaf of the Paradise Lost 
 from the press and made it the subject of his high eulogy, I have 
 forborne to insert in my page. But, though the arguments ad- 
 vanced, in the first instance by Dr. Johnson and since by Mr. 
 Malone, against the probability of this asserted fact are rather 
 more specious than those which I have been considering, still are 
 they far from being convincing or of a nature to be opposed to the 
 evidence of Sir George Hungerford, \\ho reports what he ?aw and 
 what he heard. 
 
LIFE .OF MILTON. 551 
 
 constructed his own beautiful, but very un- 
 equal edifice. 
 
 Minutely to trace all the subsequent for- 
 tunes of the Paradise Lost, through its va- 
 rious editions and translations, till it became 
 fully established in its proper rank as a Bri- 
 tish classic and the pride of modern Eu- 
 rope, 1 would probably rather fatigue than be 
 amusing to my readers. I will only there- 
 fore observe that Milton lived to obtain 
 the whole fifteen pounds for which he had 
 conditionally stipulated, that his widow sold k 
 for eight pounds the copy-right of the work 
 which he had bequeathed to her; and that 
 
 ' Notwithstanding the strange specimen of French criticism, 
 which we have lately noticed, (p. 535 in the note), the fame of 
 the Paradise Lost seems to be extending in France. A version 
 of it, with a life of its author, abridged principally from that by 
 Mr. Hayley, has been published at Paris by a M. Monneron, a 
 member of the Legislative Body : and, what is of more conse- 
 quence, a translation of our great epic has just been given to 
 the world by L'Abbe Delille. Though this translation be much 
 inferior to that of Virgil by the same elegant and spirited pen, 
 and may not be altogether equal to the high fame of Delille, it 
 contains many beautiful passages j and, though made, as it would 
 appear, without a sufficient intimacy with the language of the ori- 
 ginal, it exhibits on the whole to the French reader a very fine 
 poem. But of all the great poets Milton is perhaps the most dif- 
 ficult to be brought under the yoke of French prosody; and, 
 liappily adapted as it is to the common intercourse of society, the 
 French must be allowed by its greatest admirers not to be the 
 language of the more sublime Muse. 
 
 k On the 21st of December, 1680, as appears.by her receipt. 
 
552 LIFE OF MILTON. 
 
 Samuel Simmons, who in this instance also 
 was the purchaser, disposed of what was thus 
 wholly transferred to him, for twenty-five 
 pounds, to Brabazon Aylmer the bookseller; 
 from whom it passed, at a considerable ad- 
 vance of price, to old Jacob Tonson. The 
 thirteenth edition of this poem, in 1727, 
 ought to be mentioned with distinction, as it 
 was prefaced with a life of the author by the 
 respectable Elijah Fenton, who was at once 
 a scholar, a poet, and a man of worth. 1 
 
 In 16?0 Milton published his history of 
 England, a work of which our notices have 
 already been sufficiently ample. In, the fol- 
 lowing year he sent into the world the Pa- 
 radise Regained and the Samson. <Agonistes, m 
 poems of unequal merit, which require us to 
 pause in the narrative for the purpose of 
 making them the subjects of our transient 
 observation. 
 
 1 In 1786 a gentleman, possessing the first edition of Para- 
 dise Lost, communicated to the public, through the channel of 
 the Gentleman's Magazine, some lines on Day-break, written, 
 as he said, in a female hand on the two first leaves attached to 
 the title page of the volume, and subscribed " Dictated by 
 J. M." This testimony, united with that which is supplied by 
 the verses themselves, will not suffer us to doubt of their being 
 a production of our author's. They may be found in Mr.Todd's 
 Life of Milton, p. cxx. of the 1st ed. or p. 118 of the 2d. 
 
 m They had been licensed in the preceding year on the 2d of 
 July. 
 
LIFE OF MILTOK. 555 
 
 That considerable disappointment was felt 
 on the first appearance of the Paradise Re- 
 gained, and that the author's sensibility n was 
 hurt by the very inferior rank assigned to this 
 \vith reference to his former poem, are facts 
 which are very generally known. The Para- 
 dise Regained possessed no charms for the 
 multitude; and it seems to have fallen imme- 
 diately into that stale of disregard from which 
 it has not had the power or the good fortune 
 to emerge. Struck indeed with the beauties 
 which occur in it, with the weight of senti- 
 ment and the knowledge which it every where 
 displays, some superior men have endea- 
 voured to conciliate the public regard in its 
 favour, and even to assert for it the higher 
 honours of heroic song. Jortin, whose re- 
 marks uniformly bear testimony to the pecu- 
 liar rectitude of his mind, speaks of it in 
 terms of just and appropriate praise; and 
 Warburton, who with all the science and the 
 acuteness, wanted the fine and sensitive per- 
 ception of an accomplished critic, extrava- 
 gantly pronounces it to be " a charming 
 
 n Milton certainly did not prefer the " Paradise Regained/' 
 but tf he could not hear with patience" (these are Philips's 
 words) the former " censured to be much inferior" to the latter. 
 This surely is sufficient proof of the incompetency of an author 
 to decide on the relative merits of his own works; and requires 
 H aggravation from any mistatement of the fact. 
 
554 LIFE OF MILTON. 
 
 poem, nothing inferior in the poetry and the 
 sentiments to the Paradise Lost/' 
 
 The opinion however of these great men 
 seems to have been without influence on that 
 of the public ; and a very able and laboured 
 attempt in the present day, to lift into po- 
 pularity this second birth of Milton's epic 
 muse, has terminated equally in failure. 
 
 In 1796 an edition of this poem was pub- 
 lished by Mr. Dunster; in whom unquestion- 
 ably are united the leading requisites of a cri- 
 tic, extensive reading with an acute and dis- 
 criminating intellect. Combining the zeal 
 of an editor with the ingenuity of an advo- 
 cate, he has not only ascertained with preci- 
 sion the genuine beauties of the Paradise Re- 
 gained, but, having first persuaded himself, 
 he is solicitous to persuade us to discover 
 charms in its blemishes, and fecundity in its 
 dearth. In the judgment of this critic, the 
 absence of poetic imagery and of poetic num- 
 bers, in the Paradise Regained, results from 
 the profundity of taste and the most refined 
 artifice; is a chaste reserve of ornament, a 
 learned style of writing, to be relished indeed 
 only by the few, but by the favoured and 
 initiated few to be acknowledged as the pride 
 of composition and the last happy effect of 
 consummate and victorious art. 
 
LIFE OF MILTON. 555 
 
 If my plan would admit of any parti- 
 cular discussion of this editor's opinions and 
 remarks, it would be easy, as I conceive, to 
 convict them of essential and radical error: 
 but to account for their ill success with the 
 public, no minute or subtle disquisition will 
 be necessary. 
 
 The first purpose of poetry is to please, and 
 that poem which does not obviously please, 
 which does not flatter the ear .and make its 
 immediate appeal to the imagination or 
 the heart, has imperfectly accomplished its 
 design, and must not hope for any extensive 
 controll over the popular mind. In a com- 
 position, in which the charm and fascination 
 proper to poetry are generally prevalent, 
 criticism may explain the causes of those 
 effects which are delightful to us, and may 
 establish or extend the fame of the author: 
 hut to a poem, of which the beauties are so 
 coy and retreating as to require to be anxL 
 ously sought and forcibly dragged into light, 
 the services which the friendliness of criti- 
 cism can render are very unimportant. It is 
 in vain to tell us that we ought to be, if we 
 are not pleased ; and, if our understandings 
 can be brought into subjection by the critic, 
 our fancies revolting from his authority will 
 assert their freedom, and, turning from the 
 
556 LIFE OF MILTOX. 
 
 object of subtle and laboured panegyric, will 
 seek their peculiar luxuries wherever they 
 may be found. 
 
 On the fate of the Paradise Regained 
 the voice of the public, which on a question 
 of poetic excellence cannot for any long time 
 be erroneous, has irrevocably decided. Not 
 to object to the impropriety of the title, 
 which would certainly be more consistent 
 with a work on the death and the resurrec- 
 tion of our blessed Lord, the extreme nar- 
 rowness of the plan of the poem, the small 
 proportion of it which is assigned to action 
 and the large part which is given to disputa- 
 tions and didactic dialogue, its paucity of 
 characters and of poetic imagery, and, lastly, 
 its general deficiency in the charm of num- 
 bers must for ever preclude it from any ex- 
 tended range of popularity. It may be liked 
 and applauded by those who are resolute to 
 like and are hardy to applaud : but to the 
 great body of the readers of poetry, let the 
 critics amuse themselves with their exertions 
 as they please, it will always be " caviare/' It 
 is embellished however with several exqui- 
 site passages, and it certainly shows, in some 
 of its finer parts, the still existing author of 
 the Paradise Lost. 
 
 Shakspeare, in Hamlet. 
 
LIFE OF MILTON. 55? 
 
 On the merits of the " Samson Agonistes" p 
 there has fortunately been no important con- 
 trariety of opinion. By the universal suf- 
 frage it has been pronounced a manly, noble, 
 and pathetic drama, the progeny of a mind 
 equally exalted, sensitive and poetic. Its 
 delineation of character, though not various, 
 is discriminate and true; its sentiments are 
 uniformly weighty and dignified; its diction 
 is severe, exquisite, and sublime; and over 
 the whole is thrown an awful and majestic 
 gloom, which subdues at the same time that 
 it elevates the imagination. 
 
 With reference however either to its 
 conduct or to its execution, it cannot be con- 
 sidered as a faultless piece. On the subject 
 of its conduct, I must concur with Dr. John- 
 
 P Ayjavurrr,; (Agonistes) Certator, Qui certat gymnica cer- 
 tamina, Athleta, Pugil. (Step. Thes.) A contender in those 
 public games of Greece, which were peculiarly called Aycavs; 
 (Agones); and given with admirable propriety to Samson, as the 
 hero of this drama, the catastrophe of which results from the ex- 
 hibition of his strength in the public games of the Philistines. 
 It is strange that this most obvious meaning of the title should 
 have escaped Dr. Newton. " Samson Agonistes that is," he 
 says, t( Samson an actor, Samson being represented in a play IT 
 Dr. N. has perversely adopted the second, and least strictly pro- 
 per sense assigned by Stephens to Ayamtr?^ that of histrio, 
 actor scenicus. This is admitted without any remark or correc- 
 tion by Mr. Todd into his first edition of Milton's Poet. Works : 
 but in his second, (published more than two years after this note 
 had appeared,) he produces a note by Mr. Dunster, in which the 
 error of Dr. N. is noticed and rectified. 
 
558 LIFE OF MILTON. 
 
 son in thinking that it is destitute of a just 
 poetic middle; that the action of the drama 
 is suspended during some of its intermediate 
 scenes, which might be amputated without 
 any injury to the fable. In the inferior de- 
 partment of execution, the author seems 
 to have been betrayed into error by his de- 
 sire of imitating the choral measures of ths 
 Greeks. He perceived that the masters of 
 the Grecian theatre united in their choruses 
 verses of all descriptions, either without any 
 rule, or without any which modern critics 
 had been able to ascertain ; and his fine ear 
 could not be insensible to the harmonious 
 consequence of this apparently capricious 
 association. He was hence unwarily induced 
 to imagine that a like arbitrary junction of 
 verses in his own language would be produc- 
 tive of nearly a like effect; and, without per- 
 haps reflecting on the rich variety of the 
 Greek metres, or on the genius of the Eng- 
 lish language and the habits of the English 
 ear, he threw together in the choral parts of 
 his drama a disorderly rabble of lines of all 
 lengths, some of which are destitute of 
 rhythm, and the rest modifications only of 
 the iambic. The result, as might be expected, 
 has been far from happy; and the chorus, 
 instead of giving to his piece the charm of 
 
LIFE OF MILTON. 559 
 
 varied harmony, has injured and deformed it 
 with jarring and broken numbers. 
 
 By the Grecian dramatists the chorus 
 was admitted not on choice but from com- 
 pulsion. It was the root from which the 
 drama incidentally sprang; and, preceding 
 the dialogue, continued for some time after 
 the sprouting of that engrafted and alien 
 branch to form the chief part of the piece. 
 When the dialogue was advanced by jEschy- 
 lus to the prime honours of the scene, the 
 chorus, which could not be wholly expelled 
 from a stage of which it was the first occu- 
 pant and proprietor, was skilfully employed 
 to entertain with variety, to relieve the atten- 
 tion with musical modulation, and to serve 
 as a vehicle of pure poetry on which the 
 Muse might ascend to her most lofty and 
 adventurous elevation. Though in some re-< 
 spects therefore an incumbrance on the dra- 
 matist, the chorus was thus compelled to 
 yield him a compensation in that display of 
 his own powers which it admitted, and in 
 that diversity of pleasure with which it en- 
 abled him to gratify his audience. The Greek 
 drama w^as certainly in a state of wide sepa- 
 ration from nature; but no poetic reader 
 would wish the intervening distance to be 
 lessened by the abolition of its chorus, from 
 which his fancv and his ear derive so much 
 
560 LIFE OF MILTON. 
 
 exquisite delight. That the chorus is capa- 
 ble of effects almost equally advantageous 
 upon the English stage, has been fully proved 
 by the Caractacus of Mr. Mason: but in the 
 Samson Agonistes, in consequence of the er- 
 roneous taste with which it has been con- 
 structed,' it must be allowed egregiously to 
 have failed. 
 
 The year, succeeding the publication of 
 this grand and solemn poem, witnessed a se- 
 cond instance of the literary condescension 
 of Milton. We have already noticed the 
 Latin accidence which he published for the 
 use of children; and he now, in 1072, sup- 
 plied the young but more advanced student 
 with a scheme of logic, digested on the plan 
 of Ramus, or, in its Latin title, " Artis logicae 
 plenior institutio ad Petri Kami methodum 
 
 concinnata." 
 
 In this book, it has been suggested as 
 doubtful whether * " he did not intend an 
 act of hostility against the Universities: for 
 Ramus was one of the first oppugners of the 
 old philosophy, who disturbed with innova- 
 tions the quiet of the schools." It is proba- 
 ble indeed that, as he advanced in life, Mil- 
 ton did not contract more fondness than he 
 had formerly entertained for the modes of 
 education adopted by these venerable guar- 
 
 i Johnson's Life of Milton. 
 
LIFE OF MILTON. 56l 
 
 dians of literature: but the eye which can 
 assume to trace this hostility in the work now 
 before us must be at least as presumptuous 
 as it is malignant. 
 
 Without any reference to the rebellion of 
 his philosophy, there was much in the his- 
 tory of Ramus to conciliate the affection 
 of Milton. De la Ramee, or Ramus, had 
 emerged from a low station of life, (for his 
 father was a peasant,) by the force of intel- 
 lectual industry and the powerful efficiency 
 of character. By the publication of some 
 attacks r on the inviolable supremacy of Aris- 
 totle, he threw the university of Paris into 
 disorder, and exposed himself, as a kind of 
 confessor in the cause of philosophic free- 
 dom, to the persecuting enmity of the old zea- 
 lots of the school. The consequences of their 
 intolerance compelled him to take refuge 
 among the Huguenots; and he closed, in the 
 memorable massacre at Paris on the fatal 
 eve of St. Bartholomew, a life as remarkable 
 for its learned labour as it was for the vicis- 
 situde of its fortunes. If any circumstances 
 therefore in the personal history of Ramus 
 can be supposed to have influenced Milton 
 to select him for a guide in any province 
 
 r His Institutiones dialecticae j and his Aristotelicae animad- 
 versiones. 
 
 2 O 
 
56 1 2 LIFE OF MILTOIC. 
 
 of literature, the probity, the fortitude, the 
 perseverance, and the misfortunes of the 
 man may fairly be admitted as the causes 
 of the partiality, in preference to his reso- 
 lute, or, as some may style it, his factious op- 
 position to systems made venerable by the 
 hoariness of time. 
 
 The ardour of composition in Milton was 
 not extinguished by the damp of age. In 
 1673 by publishing a short treatise entitled, 
 " Of true Religion, Heresy, Schism,Toleration, 
 &c." he showed that the great interests of 
 man were uniformly the leading objects of 
 his regard. In this piece he strongly incul- 
 cates the duty of mutual forbearance and of 
 union among those Christians of every deno- 
 mination who appeal to the holy scriptures 
 for the rule of their faith; and he would ex- 
 clude from his scheme of ample toleration 
 the church of Rome alone, whose idolatry 
 was an offence to the Christian name, and 
 whose tenets were as incompatible with the 
 safety of any government as they were with 
 the existence of any body of dissentient 
 Christians. s 
 
 These are Milton's sentiments, not minej and in his time 
 they were justified by the still formidable and menacing aspect of 
 the Papal hierarchy. Though deprived of much of its ancient 
 power and with its capacity of mischief very considerably nar- 
 rowed, the Church of Rome, with an opulent and splendid court, 
 
LIFE OF MILTON. 563 
 
 "Let us now inquire/' he says, " whether 
 popery be tolerable or no. Popery is a dou- 
 ble thing to deal with, and claims a two- 
 fold power, ecclesiastical and political, both 
 usurped, and the one supporting the other. 
 
 But ecclesiastical is ever pretended to 
 political. The pope by this mixt faculty pre- 
 tends right to kingdoms and states, and espe- 
 cially to this of England, thrones and un- 
 thrones kings, and absolves the people from 
 their obedience to them; sometimes inter- 
 dicts to whole nations the public worship of 
 God, shutting up their churches; and was 
 wont to drain away the greatest part of the 
 wealth of this then miserable land, as part of 
 his patrimony, to maintain the pride and 
 luxury of his court and prelates; and now 
 
 and with two thirds of the population of Christian Europe under its 
 banners, continued in the 17th century to be an object of reason- 
 able terror. In the 17th century, it could still hope for the reco- 
 rery of its lost dominion : and if it could not overturn thrones and 
 distress nations by its excommunications and interdicts, it could 
 disturb establishments and throw communities into disorder by 
 its machinations and intrigues. In our days the state of things is 
 happiy quite changed : the conclave of the Vatican is overturned 
 from its foundations j the Pope is shrunk into a bishop of the French 
 empire, and the Catholics are now only a sect of Christians, who 
 profess some articles of belief not in harmony with our's, but who 
 are without the means, if we can suppose them to retain the desire 
 of injuring us, and against whom the principle of self-defence will 
 no longer support us in any measure of oppressive or discriminating 
 policy. The offence of their idolatry indeed remains: but this 
 cannot be a just object of legislative vengeance or precaution. 
 
564 LIFE OF MILTON. 
 
 since, through the infinite mercy and favour 
 of God, we have shaken oft* his Babylonish 
 yoke, hath not ceased by his spies and agents, 
 bulls and emissaries, at once to destroy both 
 king and parliament; perpetually to seduce, 
 corrupt, and pervert as many as they can of 
 the people. Whether therefore it be fit or 
 reasonable to tolerate men, thus principled in 
 religion toward the state, I submit it to the 
 consideration of all magistrates, who are best 
 able to provide for their own and the pub- 
 lic safety. As for tolerating the exercise of 
 their religion, supposing their state-activities 
 not to> be dangerous, I answer, that toleration 
 is either public or private; and the exercise 
 of their religion, as far as it is idolatrous, 
 can be tolerated neither way: not publicly 
 without grievous and insufferable scandal 
 given to all conscientious beholders; not pri- 
 vately, without great offence to God, de- 
 clared against all kind of idolatry, though 
 secret." 
 
 But even toward Papists he would not 
 exercise any personal severity. " Are we to 
 punish them/' he asks, " by corporal punish- 
 ments, or fines in their estates on account of 
 their religion? I suppose it stands not with 
 the clemency of the Gospel, more than what 
 appertains to the security of the state/' 
 
 1 P.W. iv. 264. u lb. 265. 
 
LIFE OF MILTON. 565 
 
 The author's chief purpose in this publi- 
 cation was to check the growth of popery, 
 at this juncture particularly and alarmingly ra- 
 pid in consequence of the avowed patronage 
 of the Duke of York and the secret counte- 
 nance of the king. The danger, which at 
 this instant awakened the fears of Milton, 
 became not long afterward so palpable and 
 striking as to excite the nation, united in one 
 great effort for its safety, to depose the ca- 
 tholic bigot who occupied and abused the 
 throne. 
 
 In the same year our author published a 
 second edition of his youthful poems, in one 
 volume with his " Tractate on Education," 
 and included in it some small pieces, not 
 comprehended in the edition of 1645. On 
 this occasion however the sonnets to Fair- 
 fax, to Vane, and to Cromwell, with the se- 
 cond to Cyriac Skinner, were for some unex- 
 plained reason omitted, and were first given 
 to the world, as we have before mentioned, 
 by Philips in his life of his uncle. 
 
 In 16'74, in which year he was destined 
 to complete his laborious and honourable 
 course, Milton published his familiar letters 
 and some of his university exercises; the 
 former with the title of ' Epistolarum Fa- 
 miliarium Liber unus," and the latter with 
 that of " Prolusiones qusedam oratorias in 
 
566 LIFE OF MILTON. 
 
 Collegio Christ! habitae." These letters, of 
 which we have offered to our readers more 
 than one specimen and which are addressed 
 principally to foreigners of literary eminence, 
 are possessed of peculiar interest, and con- 
 tain, as (Morhoff justly remarks,) many cha- 
 racters of ancient and modern, of foreign 
 and domestic authors which are worthy to 
 be read and understood. His college exer- 
 cises are valuable chiefly for their exhibition 
 of early power and proficiency. 
 
 The next exercise of his pen, as it is af- 
 firmed, was to translate into English the de- 
 claration of the Poles, on their elevating the 
 heroic John Sobieski to their elective throne: 
 but I must profess myself to be doubtful of 
 the fact. 8 It is more certain that in some 
 part of the same year he wrote " A Brief 
 History of Muscovy," which was published 
 at a period of about eight years posterior to 
 his death. 
 
 With this work terminated his literary 
 labours, 1 for the gout, which had for many 
 
 8 The Latin document could arrive in England only a very 
 short time before Milton's death, and the translation bears no 
 resemblance to his character of composition. These circum- 
 stances induce me to express a doubt where none of Milton's 
 preceding biographers, as far at least as I know, have inti- 
 mated any. 
 
 e An answer to a libel on himself, and a system of Theology 
 called, according to Wood, " Idea Theologize,* are compositions 
 of Milton's which have been lost. The last was at one time in 
 
LIFE OF MILTON. 56? 
 
 years afflicted him, was now appointed to 
 terminate his exemplary life. He was sum- 
 moned to his final account, for which no one 
 of his species perhaps had ever been better 
 prepared, on the u eighth of November, (1674), 
 when he expired without pain, and so quietly 
 that they who waited in his chamber were 
 unconscious of the moment of his departure. 
 " The funeral was attended/' as Toland in- 
 forms us, " by all the author's learned and 
 great friends in London, not without a friendly 
 concourse of the vulgar;" and his body was 
 deposited, by the side of his father's, in the 
 upper part of the chancel of St. Giles', Crip- 
 plegate. 
 
 In consequence of an alteration made in 
 that part of the church, the stone, inscribed 
 on this occasion with his name, was removed 
 in the course of not many years, and was 
 never replaced. But this unintended injury 
 
 the hands of Cyriac Skinner, but what became of it afterwards 
 has not been traced. Another work of our author's is men- 
 tioned by Mr. Todd. It is entitled "An Argument or Debate 
 in Law of the great Question concerning the Militia, as it ia 
 now settled by Ordinance of Parliament, by J. M. (London 
 1642.)" In the copy of this work, which Mr. Todd saw in the 
 collection of the late Duke of Bridgewater, the second Earl of 
 Bridgewater, who had acted the elder Brother in Comus, has 
 written the name of Milton as the author. 
 
 n Wood says, on the ninth or the tenth. The day of Mil- 
 ton's burial is ascertained, by the parish register, to have been 
 the twelfth. 
 
56*8 LIFE OF MILTON. 
 
 lias in our days been amply compensated 
 by the erection, in the same church, of a 
 marble bust of the great poet, by the hand 
 of Bacon and x the liberality of the late Mr. 
 Whitbread. The honourable example had 
 been given by Mr. Benson, one of the Audi- 
 tors of the Imprest, who in 1737 introduced 
 
 x In 1793. The late Mr. Whitbread was a man whose vir- 
 tues reflected honour on his species. I have been informed by 
 a gentleman, whose opportunities of knowing the fact and whose 
 high integrity of character render his authority unquestionable, 
 that the charities, which this excellent man distributed with 
 silent and sagacious beneficence, amounted annually to no less 
 a sum than 10,0001. ! -happy with the means of such extended 
 good, and still happier with the heart to employ them. His 
 virtues seem to have descended, with un diminished force and 
 lustre, to his son, the present representative in parliament of 
 the town of Bedford. 
 
 " When the inscription," says Dr. Johnson, in his biogra- 
 phical libel on Milton, " for the monument of Philips, in which 
 he was said to be soli Miltono secundus, was exhibited to Dr. 
 Sprat then dean of Westminster, he refused to admit it; the name 
 of Milton was in his opinion too detestable to be read on the 
 wall of. a building dedicated to devotion. Atterbury, who suc- 
 ceeded him, being author of the inscription, permitted its recep- 
 tion." I know of no other testimony for the fact in question 
 but this of Dr. Johnson. Jf it be authentic, it is of a nature 
 to cover the name of Sprat with eternal dishonour. The reason 
 is not less unhappy than the act, which it is brought to justify, 
 was brutal. From the repository of regal and of prelatical ashes, 
 the name of the republican and the puritan Milton might con- 
 sistently be excluded: but it is strange that the name of one of 
 the most religious of men, whose bosom from the opening to 
 the close of his life glowed with the most pure and ardent devo- 
 tion, should be regarded as " too detestable to be read on the walj 
 cf a building dedicated to devotion." 
 
LIFE OF MILTON. 569 
 
 a similar memorial of Milton into Westmin- 
 ster Abbey, to the walls of which venerable 
 building his very name had been consi- 
 dered, only a few years before, as a species 
 of pollution. The lines, 7 which Dr. George, 
 the provost of King's college, Cambridge, 
 wrote for the inscription on this monument, 
 are elegant and nervous: but the apology > 
 which they intimate, could derive its pro- 
 priety only from that illiberal and impotent 
 malice which had previously been exerted 
 against the name and memory of MILTON. Z 
 
 y Some of these verses I have inserted in my title-page, but 
 I will here give them entire. They are by no means faultless, 
 and they have certainly received their full share of praise. 
 
 Augusti regum cineres, sanctaeque favillae 
 Heroum! vosque O venerandi nominis umbrae! 
 Parcite quod vestris infensum regions olim 
 Sedibus infertur nomen j liceatque supremis 
 Funeribus finire odia, et mors obruat iras. 
 Nunc sub foederibus coeant felicibus un& 
 Libertas et jus sacri inviolabile sceptri. 
 Rege sub Augusto fas sit laudare Catonem. 
 
 Ashes of regal and of holy fame, 
 Forgive the intrusion of a hostile namel 
 Cease human enmities with human life! 
 And Death, the great composer, calm your strife! 
 Lo! how the king's and people's rights agree : 
 In freedom's hand the hallow'd sceptre see ! 
 No jealous fears alarm these happier days: 
 And our AUGUSTUS smiles at CATO'S praise. 
 
 z In the August of IfQQ, the grave, as it was imagined, of the 
 great poet was opened 5 and his remains exposed for some time 
 to the public view. The popular respect for Milton was on 
 
370 LIFE OF MILTON. 
 
 In the July preceding his decease, Milton 
 had requested the attendance of his brother, 
 Christopher, and in his presence had made a 
 disposition of his property by a formal decla- 
 ration of his will. This mode of testament, 
 which is called nuncupative and under cer- 
 tain precise regulations is admitted by the 
 ecclesiastical courts, was in the present in- 
 stance ineffectual. After a full hearing of 
 the cause, on a suit instituted against it by 
 the daughters, the nuncupative will of Mil- 
 ton was found destitute of some of the essen- 
 tial requisites for the establishment of its va- 
 lidity; and was accordingly set aside by a 
 decree of Sir Leoline Jenkins, the judge at 
 that time of the Prerogative Court. This 
 will gave the whole of the testator's actual 
 possessions to his widow, assigning nothing 
 to his daughters but their mother's marriage 
 portion, which had not yet been paid, and 
 
 this occasion discovered to be approaching to religious venera- 
 tion. The people pressed from all quarters for a sight of the 
 bones j and happy was the man who, availing himself of the 
 mercenary spirit of the parish-officers, could become the pos- 
 sessor of any portion of the sacred reliques. This profanation 
 of the ashes of the illustrious dead was warmly resented by some 
 of the writers of the day : but, much curiosity having been excited 
 on the subject, the skeleton was subjected to a very accurate 
 inspection, and proved to be that of a female. This fact, showing 
 that the coffin of Milton was yet unviolated, relieved the unea- 
 siness of his admirers, whose fondness for the man extended itself 
 to the smallest piece of dead matter, which had once contributed 
 to form his mortal residence. 
 
LIFE OF MILTON. 5?1 
 
 the sums which he had expended on their 
 education/' 8 The property, exclusive of the 
 goods, which was thus bequeathed to the 
 widow, is said to have been about fifteen 
 hundred pounds. 
 
 Disinterestedness and a contempt of mo- 
 ney had uniformly distinguished the elevated 
 mind of Milton. It is at least doubtful 
 whether he received any pecuniary compen- 
 sation from his pupils ; and of his small pa- 
 trimony he is stated to have lost two thou- 
 sand pounds by an injudicious confidence. 
 Of an equal sum, which he had saved from 
 the emoluments of his office and had placed 
 on government security, he was deprived by 
 the change of things at the Restoration ; 
 and his paternal house in Bread Street was 
 consumed by the great fire of London in 
 1666. But, with his few wants, it was diffi- 
 cult to sink him into indigence; and after all 
 his losses he was enabled, as we have seen, 
 to leave nearly three thousand pounds, (in- 
 cluding the 1000 1. still remaining in the 
 hands of the Powells,) for the subsistence of 
 his family. 
 
 a In some of the depositions attached to his will, it Is stated 
 that he had frequently declared, " that he had made provision 
 for his children in his life-time, and had spent the greatest part 
 of his estate in providing for them." The depositions were 
 made before Doctor (afterwards Sir William) Trumbull, who was 
 Secretary of State and the friend of Pope. 
 
572 LIFE OF MILTON. 
 
 We are not told, and it would be idle to 
 conjecture what sum was raised by the sale 
 of his books; a measure which was taken pre- 
 viously 'to his decease, and to which he was 
 probably induced by the persuasion that his 
 executrix would be less likely than himself to 
 obtain their just value. In his days the pur- 
 chasers of books were few, when compared 
 with those in our's; and the number of the 
 affluent, who expended large sums in literary 
 curiosities, was still perhaps proportionably 
 less. The sale in the present times of such a 
 library, as Milton's may reasonably be sup- 
 posed to have been, would alone produce a 
 large part, if not the whole of the property 
 which he bequeathed. Of this collection, 
 an Euripides is now in the possession of Mr, 
 Cradock, of Gumley in Leicestershire; and a 
 Lycophron, (as Mr. Todd, on the authority 
 of Mr. Walker, informs us,) is preserved in 
 the library of the Earl of Charlemont. The 
 margin of the Euripides is inscribed with 
 many observations and corrections by Mil- 
 ton's pen; among which Dr. Johnson, who 
 was not deep in Grecian literature, affirms that 
 he found nothing remarkable; but of which 
 some have been adopted in Barnes's edition, 
 and others inserted in Mr. Jodrell's illustra- 
 trations of this Athenian dramatist. 
 
 The concurring voices of all his early bio- 
 
LIFE OF MILTON. 573 
 
 graphers, who were personally acquainted 
 with him, will not allow us to doubt that the 
 harmony of Milton's features and form seemed 
 to make his body a suitable residence for his 
 superior soul. b At Cambridge, the fineness 
 of his complexion occasioned him to be 
 called " the lady of Christ's college;" and the 
 ruddiness, which lingered on his cheek till 
 the middle of life, gave to him at that pe- 
 riod an appearance of remarkable juvenility. 
 His eyes were dark grey; and their lustre, 
 which was peculiarly vivid, did not fade even 
 when their vision was extinguished. His 
 hair, which was light brown, he wore parted 
 at the top, and " clustering," as he describes 
 that of Adam, upon his shoulders. His per- 
 
 b I borrow the expression and the thought from Aubrey. 
 <f His harmonical and ingenuous soul," (says this biographer) 
 dwelt in a beautiful and well-proportioned body." 
 
 The personal beauty of Milton has given occasion to a little 
 romantic story, which is pleasing to the imagination. As the 
 youthful bard was asleep under a tree, an Italian lady, acci- 
 dentally passing near the place, was struck with his charms, and 
 alighted from her carriage to contemplate them. After grati- 
 fying her curiosity and feeding her love with the spectacle, she 
 dropped a paper, intimating the occurrence and professing her 
 passion, and then, withdrawing without awaking him, she pro- 
 ceeded on her journey. This event, as the story further relates, 
 determined him to cross the Alps, for the purpose of discovering 
 the fugitive fair one among the beauties of Italy. It is unneces 
 sary to say that his search was unsuccessful : but in the voice and 
 the charms of Leonora Baroni, he found an ample compensation 
 for the loss of his imaginary mistress. 
 
574 LIFE OF MILTON. 
 
 son was of the middle height, not fat or cor- 
 pulent, but muscular and compact. " His 
 deportment/' (I use the words of Wood, from 
 whom nothing but a respect for truth could 
 have extorted any favourable account of his 
 great contemporary,) " his deportment was 
 affable, and his gait erect and manly, be- 
 speaking courage and undauntedness/' 
 
 In his earlier life, he was fond of robust 
 exercises; and, excelling in the management 
 of the sword ? c he wanted neither strength nor 
 resolution to repel the insults of any adver- 
 sary, however eminent for his skill or his bo- 
 dily force. When blindness, and the gout, 
 with which he was early afflicted, confined 
 him in a great degree to his house, he con- 
 trived a swing for the purposes of exercise; 
 and to exercise in one form or other, as the 
 essential preservative of health, he regularly 
 allotted one hour in the day. 
 
 Having injured his constitution in his 
 youth by night studies, whence immediately 
 proceeded those pains in his head of which 
 we have before spoken, and that weakness 
 in his eyes which terminated in the loss of 
 
 c Doctor Johnson thinks that Milton's weapon was not the 
 rapier, but the broad sword. It was the weapon however, a 
 Milton tells us himself, which he commonly carried by his side; 
 and I suspect that gentlemen, who were not of the military pro- 
 fession, very seldom, (if ever.) wore any weapon but the small 
 sword. 
 
LITE OF MILTON. 575 
 
 sight, he corrected this erroneous practice as 
 he advanced in years, and retired to his bed 
 at the early hour of nine. The moments 
 however which he gave to sleep in the be- 
 ginning of the night, he took from the drowsy 
 power in the morning, rising in summer ge- 
 nerally at four o'clock and in winter at five. 
 When, contrary to his usual custom, he in- 
 dulged himself with longer rest, he employed 
 a person to read to him from the time of his 
 awaking to that of his rising. 
 
 The opening of his day was uniformly 
 consecrated to religion. A chapter of the 
 Hebrew scriptures being read to him as soon 
 as he was up, he passed the subsequent in- 
 terval till seven o'clock in private meditation. 
 From seven till twelve, he either listened 
 while some author was read to him, or dic- 
 tated as some friendly hand supplied him 
 with its pen. At twelve commenced his 
 hour of exercise, which before his blindness 
 was commonly passed in walking, and after- 
 ward for the most part in the swing. His 
 early and frugal dinner succeeded; and when 
 it was finished he resigned himself to the re- 
 creation of music/ by which he found his 
 
 d " In relation to his love of music," says Richardson, " and 
 the effect it had upon his mind, I remember a story I had from 
 : -a friend, I was happy in for many years 5 and who loved to 
 talk of MUton, as he often did. Milton hearing a lady sing finely, 
 
576 LIFE OF MILTON. 
 
 mind at once gratified and restored. Of 
 music he was particularly fond, and both 
 with its science and its practice he was more 
 than superficially acquainted. He could com- 
 pose, as Richardson says that it was reported; 
 and with his voice, which was delicately sweet 
 and harmonious, 6 he would frequently accom- 
 pany the instruments on which he played, 
 the bass viol or the organ. His musical taste 
 had, beyond question, been fostered by his 
 father; and the great author's love of this de- 
 lightful art is discovered in every part of his 
 writings, where its intimation can in any way 
 be made compatible with his subject. 
 
 From his music he returned, with fresh 
 
 < Now will I swear/ says he, ' this lady is handsome.' His ears 
 were now eyes to him." Rich. Remarks on Milton, p. vi. 
 
 In his Tractate on Education, as we have seen, Milton ad- 
 vises for the students this recreation of music after meals, as 
 peculiarly salutary to the mind : and it may be remarked that 
 the same indulgence has been recommended by Sir William 
 Jones from his own experience, as favourable to mental exer- 
 tion, and producing the good effects without any of the disad- 
 vantages of sleep. 
 
 I feel gratified by any opportunity of bringing forward the 
 name of the admirable SIR WILLIAM JONES ; whose life, like 
 that of Milton, was one continued and ardent struggle for the 
 acquisition of knowledge j and who sought to advance all his 
 species to that perfection, after which he himself was perpe- 
 tually straining. 
 
 e <f He (Milton) had a delicate tuneable voice," says Wood, 
 " an excellent ear, could play on the organ," c. Fast. Oxon. 
 p. 626. 
 
 
LIFE OF MILTON. 577 
 
 vigour, to the exercise of his intellect, to his 
 books or his composition. At six he ad- 
 mitted the visits of his friends: he took his 
 abstemious supper at eight; and at nine, 
 having smoked a pipe and drunk a glass of 
 water, he retired, as we have before observed, 
 to his repose. 
 
 It is not pretended that this precise and 
 uniform distribution of the day could at all 
 times be maintained without interruption. 
 When he was in office, many of his four and 
 twenty hours were unquestionably engaged 
 by business; and, as a table was allowed to 
 him by government for the entertainment of 
 learned foreigners, the scheme of life which 
 we have noticed could at this juncture have 
 been very imperfectly followed. During the 
 fourteen years, which intervened between his 
 dismission from office and his death, the ar- 
 rangement of his time would experience little 
 disturbance; though his solitude was far from 
 complete, and he was still followed by the 
 attentions of the world. 
 
 When he was in a gfeat degree deserted 
 by his thankless countrymen, he continued 
 to be gratified with the notices of illustrious 
 strangers; to whom, on their visits to our 
 island, he still formed the principal object of 
 
 2 P 
 
578 LIFE OF MILTON. 
 
 curiosity and regard/ Under the usurpation 
 of Cromwell, many had been allured from 
 the continent by the sole wish of seeing the 
 two extraordinary, but unequal and dissimilar 
 characters who held, with so much ability 
 and effect, the sceptre and the pen of Britain ; 
 and some, as Wood assures us, had visited 
 with a feeling almost of religious veneration 
 the house in Bread Street, which had been 
 hallowed as it were by the birth of the re- 
 nowned literary defender of the republic. 8 
 
 Of this great man the manners are uni- 
 versally allowed to have been affable and 
 graceful; the conversation, chearful, instruc- 
 tive and engaging. 11 In his whole deport- 
 
 f Several of these visits of persons eminent for their talenti 
 or their quality he is said to have received, as he was sitting 
 before his door, in a grey coat of coarse cloth, in warm sultry 
 weather to enjoy the fresh air: and Richardson, who relates this 
 circumstance, proceeds to tell us, " And very lately I had the 
 good fortune to have another picture of him from an ancient 
 clergyman in Dorsetshire, Dr. Wright. He found him in a 
 small house, he thinks but one room on a floor : in that up one 
 pair of stairs, which was hung with rusty green, he found John 
 Milton, sitting in an elbow chair, black cloaths, and neat 
 enough, pale but not cadaverous, his hands and ringers gouty, 
 and with chalk stones. Among other discourse he expressed 
 himself to this purpose, that was he free from the pain this gave 
 him, his blindness would be tolerable." Richard. Remarks, 
 
 &c. p. iv. 
 
 8 Fast. Oxon. p. 266. 
 
 h His youngest daughter, Deborah, (Mrs. Clark,) when speak- 
 ing of him, many years after his death, to the numerous in- 
 
LIFE OF MILTON. 5?9 
 
 ment, however, there was visible a certain 
 dignity of mind; and a something of con- 
 scious superiority, which could not at all 
 times be suppressed or wholly withdrawn 
 from observation. His temper was grave, 
 without any taint of melancholy; sanguine 
 and bold in the conception of his purposes, 
 impetuous yet persevering in their execu- 
 tion. Ardent in kindness and vehement in 
 resentment, he was inflexible only in the for- 
 
 quirers whom his fame brought to her, affirmed that " he was 
 delightful company j the life of the conversation, not only on 
 account of his flow of subject but of his unaffected cheerfulness 
 and civility." * Francis Junius, the author of De Pictura Vete- 
 rum, says, as we have already noticed, f that Milton, with whom 
 he was intimate, was affable and polite; and N. Heinsius mentions 
 the general report of his being a man of a mild and courteous 
 disposition. 
 
 The whole passage which occurs in a letter of this great scho- 
 lar's to his friend Gronovius, (dated from Leyden on the 14th of 
 August 1651,) is worthy of insertion, as it speaks the general 
 sentiment of the learned at that time in Europe respecting our 
 great author. Ludimagistrum vocat (Salmasius, here called Scri- 
 bonius,) passim Miltonum : qui tamen et nobili loco natus, et in 
 re lauta constitutus, variis peregrinationibus, assiduisque studiis 
 privatus aetatem, quam quadraginta annis grandiorem vix nume- 
 rat, exegisse narratur : donee a consilio status Anglici ad scribae 
 provinciam in isto collegio suscipiendam invitatus est. Virum esse 
 miti comique ingcnio aiunt, quique aliam non habuisse se causam 
 profitetur Scribonium acerbe insectandi, quam quod ille et viros 
 e maximis celeberrimisque multos nihil benignius exceperit, et 
 quod in universam Anglorum gentem convitiis atrocissimis inju- 
 ring valde fuerit. [Burm. Syll. iii. 276.] 
 
 * Richard. Remarks, p. xxxvi. f P. 396. 
 
580 LITE OF MILTON. 
 
 mer; and his friendships were permanent 
 while his enmities were transitory. Of the 
 facility and the heartiness with which he 
 could forgive, his conduct to the Powells ex- 
 hibits a memorable instance; and no circum- 
 stance of his life can be adduced to convict 
 him of that severity and moroseness, of which 
 he has been rashly or maliciously accused. 
 The brutal ferocity of his political assailants 
 offers a full justification of the means which he 
 employed in his defence; and if his weapons 
 were more sharp or were wielded by a more 
 vigorous arm, their's were aimed with all the 
 deadliness and were infected with all the 
 venom which their inferior powers could sup- 
 ply. In a contest with the insolent Salma- 
 sius, with the dastardly and scurrilous Du 
 Moulin, the common war of polemics " seemed 
 but a civil game ;" and the man who, involved 
 in it, could content himself with the arms of 
 the legitimate controversy of the present day, 
 might well be regarded as not less ignorant 
 of his opponents, than wanting to himself and 
 to his cause. 
 
 In his domestic intercourse, Milton has 
 not been suspected of deficient tenderness to 
 his wives: to his first his conduct seems at 
 least to have been exempt from blame; to 
 his two last to have been distinguished by 
 
LIFE OF MILTON. 581 
 
 uniform kindness and affection. His sup- 
 posed rigour to his daughters, which has al- 
 ways been asserted on very defective or very 
 questionable testimony, has of late been en- 
 tirely disproved by the attestations attached 
 to the nuncupative will of which w r e have 
 already spoken. From the whole of the evi- 
 dence, old and new, which is now before us, 
 we know that 1 two of Milton's daughters were 
 taught to read several languages, without un- 
 derstanding what they were reading, for the 
 purpose of being useful to him, and that one 
 of them was frequently employed as his ama- 
 nuensis; that, on their expressing their dislike 
 of these occupations in theserviceof their blind 
 father, he dispensed with their assistance, and, 
 expending a large part of his moderate in- 
 come on their education, 1 " dismissed them 
 to tasks better adapted to their inclinations 
 and their sex; 1 that with peculiar inhumanity 
 
 1 The eldest, Anne, was excused from reading on account of 
 an imperfection in her speech. 
 
 k " Further this deponent saith, that she hath several times 
 heard the said deceased, (John Milton,) since the time deposed, 
 declare and say, that he had made provision for his children in 
 his life-time, and had spent the greatest part of his estate in pro- 
 viding for them, &c." (See Nunc. Will of Milton, Appen. to 
 Warton's 2d ed. of his Juvenile Poems, p. xxxvii.) 
 
 1 The working of embroidery in gold and silver is specified 
 on this occasion by Philips: an art which, at that time, formed 
 one of the chief employments of females of rank and fortune. 
 
582 LIFE OF MILTON. 
 
 they neglected him in his blindness,* and were 
 capable even of defrauding or robbing n him ; 
 that with all these provocations the injured 
 father complained, it is true, of his children, 
 but complained of them without passion; and 
 seems never to have treated them with harsh- 
 ness. After the intervention of many years, 
 the youngest of these ladies, Mrs. Clarke, 
 spoke of her father with great tenderness, 
 and, on being shown a portrait which strongly 
 resembled him, she exclaimed with trans- 
 port, " Tis my father! 'tis my dear p father!" 
 an expression of affectionate remembrance 
 not likely to break from the lips of a child 
 sensible of injuries, and irritated by causeless 
 severity. She is reported indeed to have 
 been her father's favourite; and she had not 
 perhaps been so deep in undutifulness as her 
 sisters : but it must be recollected that on the 
 testimony of this daughter's daughter alone, 
 (Mrs. Foster I mean,) has been supported all 
 that charge of domestic tyranny, v;ith which 
 an attempt has been made to sully the me- 
 mory of Milton. 
 
 Of his erudition so much has necessarily 
 been said in the progress of this work, that 
 it would be superfluous to enlarge upon the 
 
 m Wart. ib. p. xxxiii. n Wart, ib p. xxxix. 
 
 * Wart. ib. p, xxxiii. P Richards. Remarks, &c. 
 
LIFE OF MILTON. 583 
 
 subject. To Doctor Ward, the rhetoric pro- 
 fessor of Gresham College, Mrs. Clarke re- 
 lated that extraordinary circumstance of her 
 and her sisters (it ought with strict accuracy 
 to have been sister) having been accustomed 
 to read to their father in eight different lan- 
 guages. The languages are not specified; 
 and, unless we separate the two dialects of 
 the Hebrew and the two also of the Spanish, 
 we can reckon, without including the English, 
 only six of them: but with Hebrew, Greek,7 
 Latin, Italian, French, and Spanish we know 
 that Milton was intimately conversant; and 
 that, by unremitting study, he improved this 
 large acquaintance with language into the 
 mean of the most ample knowledge. If his 
 Greek learning must be allowed to have been 
 less accurate than that of a few of his contem- 
 poraries or of some of the illustrious scholars 
 of the present day, it was unquestionably not 
 less extensive; and it gave him full dominion 
 of the historians, the poets, the orators, the 
 philosophers of that favoured country, in 
 which the human intellect seems to have at- 
 tained its highest stature, its keenest vision, 
 and its most comprehensive embrace. Among 
 the Greeks, his favourite authors are said to 
 have been Euripides, Demosthenes, Plato,! 
 and Homer, whose long poems he could 
 
584 LIFE OF MILTON. 
 
 nearly recite by memory. Of the Latins, Ovid, 
 as we are certain, possessed a prime place 
 in his regard; and, from the circumstantial 
 eulogy which he pronounces, in one of his 
 familiar epistles, q on the merits of Sallust, we 
 may infer the superior value which he as- 
 signed to the weighty and pregnant compres- 
 sion of that admirable historian. He zea- 
 lously however followed the precept of the 
 Roman critic, and sedulously formed his taste 
 on the great models of Greece. But we must 
 not imagine that Milton's knowledge was 
 confined within the pale of classical erudi- 
 tion. His active and strong intellect tra- 
 versed the whole circle of the sciences, and 
 there was scarcely one of them which he had 
 not penetrated deeper than the surface. 
 
 For those political opinions, by which he 
 was steadily actuated from the beginning to 
 the termination of his career, some apology 
 has always been expected, when in truth 
 none can be necessary. From his own to 
 the present times, the republicanism of this 
 great man has uniformly been regarded as 
 throwing a shade over his character, which 
 the most affectionate of his biographers have 
 rather hoped to extenuate than been ambi- 
 tious to remove. 
 
 * Henrico de Bras, P. W. vi. 135. 
 
LIFE OF MILTON. 585 
 
 To the sagacious and unprejudiced eye, 
 which contemplates the constitution of Eng- 
 land, as it was established at the Revolution 
 in 1689 ; to the eye, which can command 
 this admirable system of liberty in all its 
 beautiful complexity; which sees it diffusing 
 through the whole subordination of its com- 
 munity more equal freedom than has ever yet 
 resulted from any other plan of political insti- 
 tution; which observes it extending the con- 
 troll of law to its highest subject and the 
 protection of law to its lowest; which views 
 it every where jealously checking and ba- 
 lancing its trust of power ; which beholds it 
 opening all its emoluments and honours, with 
 the exception of one unattainable dignity, to 
 the exertions of ability and virtue, and thus 
 uniting the animation of a commonwealth 
 with the tranquillity and the executiveness of 
 a monarchy; which surveys it, in short, as it 
 efficiently combines democratic energy with 
 hereditary power in its legislature, and de- 
 mocratic feeling with legal w r isdom on its tri- 
 bunals, to such an eye, a republic in all its 
 visionary perfection can present only relative 
 deformity, and can suggest nothing more than 
 an occasion of envy or of glory in the fortu- 
 nate inheritance of Englishmen. 
 
 But in Milton's days the political pros- 
 
586 LITE OF MILTON. 
 
 pect was far less alluring; and, from the spec- 
 tacle before him, a wise and a good man 
 might very justifiably surrender himself to the 
 impulse of different impressions. 
 
 Some of the great component parts of 
 the British constitution, (for the liberties of 
 England are not the creatures of yesterday,) 
 had long before been in existence : the Par- 
 liament, with all its pre-eminences of power, 
 could boast in fact of its Saxon pedigree; 
 the common law of England subsisted in its 
 mature vigour; and the trial by jury, with an 
 origin to be traced to the remotest times, of- 
 fered its equal justice to the criminal and the 
 innocent. A concurrence of unfortunate cir- 
 cumstances had however disordered the ma- 
 chine, and reduced it in the middle of the 
 seventeenth century to little more than a 
 ruin and a name. The impetuous power of 
 the Tudors, springing from the disastrous 
 consequences of the wars between the fac- 
 tions of York and Lancaster, had overleaped 
 every barrier of the constitution ; and the 
 ambition of the Stuarts, at a period less fa- 
 vourable to the exertion of lawless preroga- 
 tive, had diligently followed in the track of 
 their insolent and tyrannical predecessors. 
 On whatever side he looked, Milton saw no- 
 thing but insulted parliaments, arbitrary tax- 
 
LIPE OF MILTON. 58? 
 
 ation, illegal and sanguinary tribunals, cor- 
 rupted and mercenary law, bigotted and de- 
 solating persecution. With that ardent love 
 of liberty therefore, which always burns 
 brightest in the most expanded and elevated 
 bosoms, and fresh from the schools of Greece 
 and Rome which had educated the master- 
 spirits of the world, it was natural for him to 
 turn with delight from the scene in which 
 he was engaged, to those specious forms of 
 government, the splendid operations of which 
 were obvious while the defects were with- 
 drawn in a great measure by distance from 
 the sight. He preferred a republic, (and 
 who can blame him?) to that unascertained 
 and unprotected constitution, which on every 
 quarter was open to successful invasion, which 
 gave the promise of liberty only, as it were, to 
 excite the pain of disappointment, and which 
 told men that they had a right to be free in 
 the very instant in which it abandoned them 
 to oppression. 
 
 With Milton, the idea of liberty was as- 
 sociated with that of the perfection of his spe- 
 cies; and he pursued the great object with 
 the enthusiasm of benevolence, and with the 
 consciousness of obedience to a high and im- 
 perious duty. Against tyranny or the abuse 
 of power, wJherever it occurred and by wJbat- 
 
588 LIFE OF MILTON. 
 
 ever party it was attempted, in the church 
 or the state, by the prelate or the presby- 
 ter, he felt himself summoned to contend. 
 From his continuance in office under the 
 usurpation of Cromwell, he has been arraigned 
 of inconsistency and a dereliction of prin- 
 ciple. But, not to repeat what has already 
 been advanced upon the subject, his office 
 did not in any way blend him with the usur- 
 pation; he had no connexion with the con- 
 fidence, or the counsels of the Protector; and 
 he conceived, with the most perfect truth, 
 that he was the servant of his country when 
 he acted as the organ of her intercourse with 
 foreign states. We have seen his magna- 
 nimous address to the usurper; and from 
 some of his private letters we rnay collect 
 his acute feelings of mortification and disap- 
 pointment in consequence of the afflicted 
 state of the commonwealth, and the aban- 
 donment of that cause which was always the 
 nearest to his heart. 
 
 But sanguine, or, if it must be so, rash 
 and blind as was his affection for liberty, he 
 was not prepared to receive it from the go- 
 vernment of the multitude; or to believe 
 that, what he considered as the offspring only 
 of wisdom and virtue, could ever be gene- 
 rated by the ferment of an uneducated and 
 
LIFE OF MILTON 589 
 
 unenlightened rabble. From his prose-writ- 
 ings and his poems many passages might be 
 adduced to prove that, drawing the just line 
 between liberty and licentiousness, he re- 
 garded the latter as the ignorant and de- 
 structive demand of the many, while to love 
 and cultivate the former was the privilege of 
 the favoured and gifted few. His liberal 
 and elevated sentiment seems to have been 
 precisely the same with that of the excel- 
 lent Sir William Jones : " that the race of 
 man, to advance whose manly happiness is 
 our duty, and ought of course to be our 
 endeavour, cannot long be happy without vir- 
 tue, or actively virtuous without freedom, or 
 securely free without rational knowledge." 
 
 Though no doubt can exist of the since- 
 rity and fervour of Milton's Christian faith, 
 some questions have resulted from the pecu- 
 liarities of his religious ' opinions and prac- 
 tice. In the early part of his life he zea- 
 lously adhered, as we know, to the system 
 of Calvin, and classed himself with those 
 severer religionists who were then indiscri- 
 minately branded with the name of Pu- 
 
 r Not of his theological opinions, for these, as far as it ap- 
 pears, were orthodox and consistent with the creed of the Church 
 of England. The peculiarity of Milton's religious opinions had 
 reference to Church government and the externals of devotion. 
 
5QO LIFE OF MILTON. 
 
 ritans. Disgusted, subsequently, with the 
 intolerance and the spiritual domination of 
 the Presbyterians, he passed into the ranks 
 of the Independents; and latterly, as Toland 
 asserts, he ceased to be a professed member 
 of any particular sect, frequenting none of 
 their assemblies, and using none of their pe- 
 culiar rites in his family. 
 
 From this assertion of Toland's, and from 
 the general silence of Milton's biographers 
 respecting his use either of family or of closet 
 prayer, some inferences have been deduced 
 to the disadvantage of his devotional charac- 
 ter. It has been insinuated that, without 
 the existence of external rites, religion would 
 insensibly slide even from such a mind as 
 Milton's; that in these instances of omission 
 he was probably acting without his own ap- 
 probation, and that death perhaps inter- 
 cepted him in his daily resolutions to reform 
 a scheme which his reason must s have con- 
 demned. The greater part of the premises, 
 from which these conclusions are not after all 
 very fairly drawn, rests upon nothing more 
 than the weakness of negative evidence. 
 
 The fact of Milton's not frequenting in 
 the latter period of his life any place of pub- 
 
 8 Johnson's Life of Milton. 
 
LIFE OF MILTON. 591 
 
 lie worship, may possibly, though still with 
 caution, be admitted on the single testimony 
 of r Toland : but the cause of this fact will 
 more properly be sought in the blindness and 
 infirmities, which for some of his last years 
 confined the great author to his house, than 
 in any disgust, with which he had been af- 
 fected by a nearer insight into the imper- 
 fections of the contending sects. On any 
 determination of this question, narrow must 
 be the mind of that man who can suspect 
 the devotion of Milton, merely because it 
 was not exercised within the consecrated pre- 
 cincts of a church. We are fully aware of 
 the usefulness and the duty of public wor- 
 ship, and in us the omission of it would be 
 criminal: but the degree of the obligation 
 must be measured by the standard in the bo- 
 som of the individual; and we believe that a 
 good man may offer his homage to God, 
 with as strong an assurance of acceptance, 
 
 * When I speak of the diffidence with which Toland's tes- 
 timony in this instance ought to be received, I refer to those 
 unhappy prepossessions on the subject of religion, with which 
 this respectable biographer is known to have been biassed) and 
 which would naturally induce him to lessen the distance as 
 much as he possibly could, in this essential respect, between 
 Milton and himself. If it could be proved that Milton in his 
 latter days had contracted a general indifference for religion, a 
 great point would be carried for the cause of infidelity. 
 
LITE OF MILTON. 
 
 in the Lybian desert as in the cathedral of St. 
 Paul's. 
 
 For Milton's disuse of all prayer, in his 
 family or by himself, no evidence is pretended 
 but what results from the silence of his bio- 
 graphers ; and for a part of the alleged fact 
 no evidence could have been obtained with- 
 out that admission to the privacies of his 
 closet, which would be denied to the most 
 privileged friendship. The first hours of his 
 day were regularly devoted, as we are as- 
 sured, to religious reading and meditation; 
 and of the time, thus appropriated to devo- 
 tion, it is but reasonable to conclude that a 
 part was assigned to petition and thanksgiv- 
 ing immediately addressed to the great Fa- 
 ther of Mercies. With respect to his family, 
 we know that he carefully initiated his pu- 
 pils into the principles of Christian theology, 
 and w r e cannot without violence bring our- 
 selves to believe that he would withhold 
 from his children that momentous instruction, 
 which he so sedulously imparted to persons 
 more remotely connected with him. On the 
 supposition therefore, which is by no means 
 supported by sufficient testimony, of his hav- 
 ing neglected to summon his family to regular 
 and formal prayer, I am far from certain that 
 he can be convicted of any violent omission of 
 
LIFE OF MILTON. 
 
 duty; for, having impressed their minds with 
 a just sense of the relation in which they 
 stood to their Creator, he might allowably 
 withdraw his interference, and leave them to 
 adjust their homage and their petitions to 
 their own feelings and their own wants. 
 
 From the materials, which have been left 
 to us on the subject, we have now completed 
 the history of JOHN MILTON; a man in 
 whom were illustriously combined all the 
 qualities that could adorn, or elevate the na- 
 ture to which he belonged; a man, who at 
 once possessed beauty of countenance, sym- 
 metry of form, elegance of manners, bene- 
 volence of temper, magnanimity and loftiness 
 of soul, the brightest illumination of intellect, 
 knowledge the most various and extended, 
 virtue that never loitered in her career nor 
 deviated from her course; a man, who, if he 
 had been delegated as the representative of 
 his species to one of the superior worlds, 
 would have suggested a grand idea of the 
 human race, as of beings affluent with moral 
 and intellectual treasure, who were raised and 
 distinguished in the universe as the favourites 
 and heirs of Heaven. 
 
 The greatness of Milton imparts an in- 
 terest to every thing which is connected with 
 
 2 Q 
 
594 LIFE OF MILTON. 
 
 him, and naturally points our curiosity to 
 the fortunes of his descendants. Of the three 
 daughters whom he left, and who were by 
 his first wife, Anne, the eldest, who with a 
 handsome face was deformed, married a mas- 
 ter builder, and died with her child in her 
 first lying-in: of Mary, the second, we know 
 only that she discovered the least affection for 
 her father, and died in a single state; and 
 Deborah, the youngest, leaving her father's 
 house in consequence of some disagreement 
 with her step-mother three or four years be- 
 fore his decease, accompanied a lady of the 
 name of Merian to Ireland, and afterwards 
 married Abraham Clarke, a weaver in Spi- 
 talfields. The distress, into which she fell, 
 experienced some late and imperfect relief 
 from the liberality of Addison, and the less 
 splendid munificence of Queen Caroline ; from 
 the former of w r hom she received a handsome 
 donation, with a promise, which death pre- 
 vented him from accomplishing, of a perma- 
 nent provision ; and from the latter a present, 
 improperly called royal, of fifty guineas. She 
 strongly resembled her father's portrait, and 
 possessed good sense with genteel manners. 
 By the affection also, which she discovered 
 for her father many years after his death, she 
 
LIPE OF MILTOX. 595 
 
 seems to have been intitled to that partial 
 regard with which he is reported to have dis- 
 tinguished her. 
 
 Of her seven sons and three daughters, 
 two only left any offspring; Caleb, who, mar- 
 rying in the East Indies, had two sons whose 
 history cannot be traced; and Elizabeth, who 
 married Thomas Foster, of the same profession 
 with her father, and had by him three sons 
 and four daughters, who all died young and 
 without issue. In penury and age, she was 
 discovered in a little chandler's shop, and 
 brought forward to public notice by the ac- 
 tive benevolence of Doctor Birch and Doctor 
 Newton. In consequence of this awakened 
 attention to the grand-daughter of Milton, 
 Comus was u acted for her benefit, and John- 
 son, associated at that time as he was in the 
 injurious labours of the infamous Lander, 
 did not hesitate to supply the occasional pro- 
 logue. The produce of this benefit was only 
 one hundred and thirty pounds; and, with 
 this small sum between her and her former 
 wretchedness, she relapsed into indigence 
 and the obscurity of her shop. She died, 
 as I am informed by a paragraph x in one of 
 
 u April 5th i;5O. 
 
 * This paragraph which is preserved in the " Memoirs of 
 Thomas Hollis, Esq. (v. i. p. 1 14.) shall here be transcribed. 
 
596 LIFE or MILTOX. 
 
 the contemporary newspapers, on the Qth of 
 May, 1754; and with her, as it is. highly pro- 
 bable, expired the last descendent of the im- 
 mortal Milton. 
 
 Some of the little information, which she 
 supplied respecting her grandfather and his 
 family, seems to have been erroneous. For 
 the fact of his second wife dying in child- 
 bed we have the testimony not only of 
 Philips, but of Milton himself, who in the 
 sonnet on her death makes a direct y allusion 
 to its cause; and yet Mrs. Foster affirmed that 
 this lady died of a consumption, at a period 
 of more than three months after her lying- 
 in. When Mrs. Foster mentioned France as 
 the birth place of our author's father, she 
 was also mistaken; and she was again un- 
 questionably wrong if she affirmed, as it is 
 said, that her mother and her aunts had not 
 been taught and were unable to write. When 
 she mentioned however that her grandfather 
 seldom went abroad during the latter years 
 of his life, and was at that time constantly 
 visited by persons of distinction among his 
 
 " On Thursday last, (May 9, 1754) died at Islington, in the 
 66th year of her age, after a long and painful illness which she 
 sustained with Christian fortitude and patience, Mrs. Elizabeth 
 Foster, granddaughter of Milton." 
 
 y " Mine, as whom, wash'd from spot of childbed taint, 
 Purification in the old law did save," c. Son. xxiiu 
 
LIFE OF MILTON. 597 
 
 countrymen and foreigners, her relation is 
 supported by its probability and by the con- 
 currence of his contemporary biographers. 
 She spoke of three portraits of her illustrious 
 ancestor, which had been painted at different 
 periods of his life; the first, when he was at 
 school; the second, when he was about the 
 age of twenty-five, and the last, when he was 
 advanced in years. 
 
 The first of these portraits is that painted 
 in 1618 by Cornelius Janssen, which we have 
 noticed in one of the first pages of our work. 
 It is a half-length picture of the boy Mil- 
 ton; and, having been first purchased from 
 the executors of Milton's widow by Mr. 
 Charles Stanhope, at the sale of his effects 
 it became the properly of the late Mr. 
 Thomas Hollis; by whom being bequeathed 
 to Mr. Brand, it has subsequently been trans- 
 mitted by the will of this last gentleman to 
 the reverend Doctor Disney; and with him it 
 at present remains. Of the two other por- 
 traits, unless the last be that crayon drawing 
 by Faithorne, for which Milton sate in his 
 sixty-second year and which is reported to 
 have the most strongly resembled him, 2 I 
 can communicate no particular intelligence. 
 
 z On the production of this portrait it was that Mrs. Clarke, 
 affected by the resemblance, broke out into those affectionate 
 exclamations., of which we have spoken* 
 
598 LITE OF MILTON. 
 
 They, who are desirous of minute informa- 
 tion respecting the portraits of this great 
 man and the numerous engravings which 
 have been made from them, may find it in 
 the edition of his juvenile poems published 
 by Mr. Warton/ and in the " Memoirs of 
 Thomas Hollis." b 
 
 On the back of the miniature picture by 
 Cooper, (which was purchased by Sir Joshua 
 Reynolds, and is said, though, as I conceive, 
 very erroneously, to be of Milton,) is written, 
 " This picture belonged to Deborah Milton, 
 who was her father's amanuensis." I adduce 
 this circumstance as an additional attestation 
 of a fact, which 1 have related on the autho- 
 rity of Aubrey and Wood. 
 
 Milton's armorial bearings were, argent, 
 a spread eagle, with two heads gules, legged 
 and beaked sable. A small silver seal with 
 these arms, with which he was accustomed 
 to seal his letters, is still preserved. On the 
 death of Foster, the husband of Milton's 
 grand-daughter, it passed, through one inter- 
 mediate hand, into the possession of Mr. T. 
 Hollis who purchased it in 1761. Accompa- 
 nying the rest of the Hollis property in its tran- 
 sits, it at present forms one of the curiosities 
 in the cabinet of the liberal Doctor Disney. 
 
 * P, 529. in the note, b Vol.i. p. 113. 11?, 
 
APPENDIX. 
 
 AD PATREM.* 
 
 NUNC mea Pierios cupiam per pectora fontes 
 Irriguas torquere vias, totumque per ora 
 Volvere laxatum gemino de vertice rivum j 
 Ut, tenues oblita sonos, audacibus alis 
 Surgat*in officium venerandi Musa parentis. 
 Hoc utcunque tibi gratum, pater optime, carmen, 
 Exiguum meditator opus ; nee novimus ipsi 
 Aptiiis a nobis quae possunt munera donis 
 Respondere tuis, quamvis nee maxima possint 
 RespDndere tuis, nedum ut par gratia donis 
 Esse queat, vacuis quae redditur arida verbis. 
 Sed tamen base nostros ostendit pagina census, 
 Et quod habemus opum charta numeravimus ista, 
 Quae mihi sunt nullae, nisi quas dedit aurea Clioj 
 Quas mihi semoto somni peperere sub antro, 
 Et nemoris laureta sacri Parnassides umbrae. 
 
 Nee tu vatis opus divinum despice carmen ; 
 Quo nihil aethereos ortus et semina coeli, '-> 
 
 Nil magis humanam commendat origine mentem, 
 Sancta Prometheae retinens vestigia flammae. 
 Carmen amant superi, tremebundaque Tartara carmen 
 Ima ciere valet, divosque ligare profundos, 
 Et triplici duro Manes adamante coercet. 
 Carmine sepositi retegunt arcana futuri 
 Phoebades, et tremulae pallentes ora Sibyllae : 
 Carmina sacrificus sollennes pangit ad aras, 
 Aurea seu sternit motantem cornua taurumj 
 Seu cum fata sagax. fumantibus abdita ribris 
 lit, et tepidis Parcam scrutatur in extis. 
 
 * For the reference to this poem see p. 47. 
 
600 APPENDIX. 
 
 Nos etiam, patrium tune cum repetemus Olympum, 
 ^Eternaeque morse stabunt immobilis sevi, 
 Ibimus auratis per coeli templa coronis ; 
 Dulcia suaviloquo sociantes carmina plectro, 
 Astra quibus, geminique poll convexa sonabunt, 
 Spiritus et rapidos qui circinat igneus orbes, 
 Nunc quoque sidereis intercinit ipse choreis 
 Immortale melos, et inenarrabile carmen j 
 Torrida dum rutilus compescit sibila Serpens, 
 Demissoque ferox gladio mansuescit Orion, 
 Stellarum nee sentit onus Maurusius Atlas. 
 Carmina regales epulas ornare solebant, 
 Cum nondum luxus, vastceque immensa vorago 
 Nota gulae, et modico spumabat coma Lyseo. 
 Turn, de more sedens festa ad convivia, vates, 
 ^Esculea intonsos redimitus ab arbore crines, 
 Heroumque actus, imitandaque gesta canebar, 
 Et chaos, et positi late fundamina mundi, 
 Reptantesque deos, et alentes numina glandes, 
 Et nondum ^Etnaeo qusesitum fulmen ab antro. 
 Denique quid vocis modulamen inane juvabit, 
 Verborum sensusque vacans, numerique loquacis ? 
 Silvestres decet iste chores, non Orphea, cantus^ 
 Qui tenuit fluvios et quercubus addidit aures 
 Carmine, non cithara; simulacraque functa canendo 
 Compulit in lacrymas : habet has i carmine laudes. 
 
 Nee tu perge, precor, sacras contemnere Musas, 
 Nee vanas inopesque putn, quarum ipse peritus 
 Munere mille sonos numeros componis ad aptos ? 
 Millibus et vocem modulis variare canoram 
 Doctus, Arionii meritb sis nominis haeres. 
 Nunc tibi quid mirum si me genuisse poetam 
 Contigerit, charo si tarn prope sanguine juncti, 
 Cognatas artes studiumque affine sequamur? 
 Jpse volens Phnebus se dispertire duobus, 
 Altera dona mihi, dedit altera dona parenti; 
 Dividuumque Deum, genitorque puerque, tenemus. 
 
 Tu tamen ut si mules teneras odi&se Camocnas, 
 
APPENDIX. 601 
 
 Non odisse reorj neque enim, pater, ire jubebas 
 Qua via lata patet, qua pronior area lucri, 
 Certaque condendi fulget spes aurea nummi : 
 Nee rapis ad leges, male custoditaque gentis 
 Jura, nee insulsis damnas clamoribus aures : 
 Sed, magis excultam cupiens ditescere mentem, 
 Me procul urbano strepitu, secessibus altis 
 Abductum, Aoniae jucunda per otia ripae, 
 Phoebaeo later! comitem sinis ire beatum. 
 Officium chari taceo commune parentisj 
 Me poscunt majora: tuo, pater optime, sumptu 
 Cum mihi Romuleae patuit facundia linguae, 
 Et Latii veneres, et, quae Jovis ora decebant, 
 Grandia magniloquis elata vocabula Graiis, 
 Addere suasisti quos jactat Gallia flores ; 
 Et quam degeneri novus Italus ore loquelam 
 Fnndit, barbaricos testatus voce tumultusj 
 Quaeque Palaestinus loquitur mysteria vates. 
 I>enique quicquid habet coelum, subjectaque ccelo 
 Terra parens, terraeque et coelo interfluus acr, 
 Quicquid et unda tegit, pontique agitabile marmor, 
 Per te nosse licet, per te, si nosse libebit : 
 Dimotaque venit spectanda scientia nube, 
 Nudaque conspicuos inclinat ad oscula vultus, 
 Ni fugisse velim, ni sit libasse molestum. 
 
 I nunc, confer opes, quisquis malesanus avitas 
 Austriaci gazas Periianaque regna praeoptas. 
 Quae potuit majora pater tribuisse, vel ipse 
 Jupiter, excepto, donasset ut omnia, coelo? 
 Non potiora dedit, quamvis et tuta fuissent, 
 Publica qui juveni commisit lumina nato, 
 Atque Hyperionios currus, et fraena diei, 
 Et circum undantem radiata luce tiaram. 
 Ergo ego, jam doctae pars, quamlibet ima, catervae, 
 Victrices hederas inter laurosqus sedebo; 
 Jamque nee obscnrus populo miscebor inert!, 
 Vitabuntque oculos vestigia nostra profanes. 
 
 .procul, vigiles Curae, procul este, Querela?, 
 
602 APPENDIX. 
 
 Invidiaeque acies transverse tortilis hirquo, 
 Saeva nee anguiferos extende, Calumnia, rictus; 
 In me triste nihil, foedissima turba, potestis, 
 Nee vestri sum juris ego : securaque tutus 
 Pectora, vipereo gradiar sublimis ab ictu. 
 
 At tibi, chare pater, postquam non aequa merenti 
 Posse referre datur, nee dona rependere factis, 
 Sit memorasse satis, repetitaque munera grato 
 Percensere animo, fidaeque reponere menti. 
 
 Et vos, O nostri, juvenilia carmina, lusus, 
 Si modo perpetuos sperare audebitis annos, 
 Et domini superesse rogo, lucemque tueri, 
 Nee spisso rapient oblivia nigra sub Oreo ; 
 Forsitan has laudes, decantacumque parentis' 
 Nomen, ad exemplum, sero servabitis aevo. 
 
 TO MY FATHER. 
 
 O ! that, descending from the two-fold hill, 
 Pieria's fountain would my bosom fill ; 
 Through all its depths, in limpid fancy, roll, 
 Blend with my thought and sparkle in my soul : 
 That thus my song might happily aspire 
 From meaner themes to hail my honoured sire. 
 The Muse, thou best of parents! fain would twine 
 A wreath to crown paternal worth like thine. 
 The gift, though small, my sire will not refuse : 
 Nor know we how, without the according Muse, 
 To find what we may offer, you receive, 
 In fond requital of the love you give : 
 To form the just requital of your love, 
 Poor would the Muse with all her offerings prove : 
 To absolve my mighty debt her gifts how vain 
 A tuneful nothing, and a barren strain. 
 But in my numbers all my wealth resides - t 
 I own no means of recompense besides ; 
 
APPENDIX. 60S 
 
 My sole exchequer fill'd by Clio's smile ; 
 
 The regal maid, who crowns my faithful toil : 
 
 Who, as beneath her laurel shade I dream, 
 
 Visits my slumbers in a golden stream. 
 
 Nor slight the treasures of the harmonious Nine, 
 
 Who greatly speak the source of man, divine : 
 
 Show that he caught a sparkle from above ; 
 
 His breast still glowing with the fire of Jove. 
 
 Heaven's ear is charm'd with song: controlling verse 
 
 With thrilling force dire Tartarus can pierce} 
 
 With chains of triple adamant compell 
 
 The dusky hosts, and bind the powers of hell. 
 
 In verse the priestess shakes the Pythian cave: 
 
 Rapt into verse, the pale-eyed Sybills rave : 
 
 Verse smooths the sacrificer's holy prayer 
 
 At the dread altar, as his hands prepare 
 
 To strike the bull that threats in gaudy state; 
 
 Or in the breathing entrails grope for fate. 
 
 We too, when raised to our celestial land, 
 
 Where time in one stupendous pause shall stand, 
 
 Crown'd with pure gold shall tread the eternal fane, 
 
 Attuning to the lyre the numerous strain : 
 
 While the pleased stars, that gem the vaulted sky, 
 
 Catch the soft tones, and ring in sweet reply. 
 
 The guardian Power, who, throned on every sphere, 
 
 Wheels the vast orb, and guides its proud career, 
 
 Pours, as he circles through the starry throng. 
 
 The unutterable notes of angel-song. 
 
 Fierce Ophiuchus hears with mute delight; 
 
 And stern Orion checks the threaten'd fight; 
 
 While Atlas, as the lays abstract his soul, 
 
 Exults, unconscious of the incumbent pole. 
 
 When yet the social board, by reason graced, 
 
 Disdain'd subservience to the glutton taste; 
 
 When modest Bacchus gave the frugal cheer, 
 
 The feasts of monarchs own'd the Muses dear. 
 
 There sate the bard in state above the rest, 
 
 His unshorn locks with oaken wreaths compress'd: 
 
604 APPENDIX. 
 
 His the high deeds of heroes to rehearse, 
 
 And bid the great examples live in verse : 
 
 His with sublimer spirit to recite 
 
 The world first rising from essential night; 
 
 And infant deities with acorns fed, 
 
 Unarm'd as yet from thund'ring ./Etna's bed. 
 
 Nor aught avail the melodies of tone 
 
 To words unwedded, and the Muse unknown. 
 
 'Twas not the harp of Orpheus, but the song 
 
 That held the floods, and drew the trees along j 
 
 Touch'd the hard breasts of spectres with consent; 
 
 And made their eyes in stony showers relent. 
 
 Nor you affect to scorn the Aonian quire, 
 Bless'd by their smiles, and glowing with their fire: 
 You, who, by them inspired, with art profound 
 Can wield the magic of proportion'd sound : 
 Through thousand tones can teach the voice to stray, 
 And wind to harmony its mazy way, 
 Arion's tuneful heir ! then wonder not 
 A poet-child should be by you begot. 
 My kindred soul is warm with kindred flame, 
 And the son treads the father's track to fame. 
 Phoebus con trolls us with a common sway; 
 To you his lyre commends, to me his lay : 
 Whole in each bosom makes his just abode; 
 "With child and sire the same, though varied God. 
 
 Yet that you hate the Muse is but profess'd : 
 Her secret love is cherish'd in your breast. 
 Else why not urge my steps where fortune lies 
 In the prone path, and vaunts her gaudy prize : 
 Why not condemn me, with the bar's hoarse throng. 
 To gather affluence from a nation's wrong: 
 Why rather seek with intellectual gold 
 To deck my mind, and to my sight unfold, 
 Withdrawn in shades from lucre's noisy band, 
 The beauteous vision of the Aonian land: 
 Give me through all its bloomy wilds to stray, 
 The bless'd companion of the God of day ? 
 
APPENDIX. 605 
 
 I pass the endearing fatherly caress,- 
 
 And in the greater kindness lose the less. 
 
 When by your bounty, sire, the words, that hung, 
 
 In strength and sweetness, on the Latian's tongue, 
 
 I now had learn'd; and, what even Jove could speak, 
 
 The full sonorous accents of the Greek -, 
 
 Your love persuasive press'd me to advance, 
 
 And glean the flowers that strew the page of France: 
 
 To win Italians modern Muse, who shows 
 
 The base pollution of barbarian foes; 
 
 And read the native strains of hallow'd lore, 
 
 Taught by heaven-tutor'd Palestine of yore. 
 
 Nor yet content, you led my curious eye 
 
 To scan the circling wonders of the sky : 
 
 Of air the lucid secrets to reveal, 
 
 And know what earth's and ocean's depths conceal. 
 
 Thus brought to science in her inmost seat, 
 
 You broke the cloud that veil'd her last retreat; 
 
 And ofter'd, in her plenitude of charms, 
 
 The naked goddess to my youthful arms: 
 
 And., if your power had match'd your will to bless, 
 
 Now should my arms the heavenly fair possess. 
 
 Mad worshippers of gold ! and will ye dare 
 
 With mine your glittering treasures to compare ? 
 
 Mine wealth intangible, and haply your's 
 
 All that the sun in India's lap matures. 
 
 Say could a father more than mine have given, 
 
 If Jove that father, and reserved his heaven ? 
 
 Had it been safe, the boon less precious far, 
 
 When Hyperion lent his blazing car; 
 
 Sent forth his boy in all the god's array. 
 
 And crown'd him with intolerable day. 
 
 Now deck'd with ivies and immortal bays, 
 
 One, though the meanest of the sons of praise. 
 
 High shall I keep the tenor of my state 
 
 O'er the base crowd, and lifted from their fate. 
 
 Hence, wakeful Cares, and pining Sorrows fly 1 
 
 Hence leering Envy, with thy sidelong eye! 
 
606 APPENDIX. 
 
 Slander in vain thy viper-jaws expand ! 
 No harm can touch me from your hateful band! 
 Alien from you, my breast,, in virtue strong, 
 Derides the menace of your reptile throng. 
 
 Since then, dear sire, my gratitude can find, 
 For all your gifts, no gifts of equal kind: 
 Since every prouder wish my powers confine- 
 Accept, for all, this fond recording line: 
 O! take the love that strives to be express'd! 
 O! take the thanks that swell within my breast! 
 And you, sweet triflings of my youthful state, 
 If strains like you can hope a lasting date : 
 Unconscious of your mortal master's doom, 
 If ye maintain the day, nor know the tomb, 
 From dark forgetfulness, as time rolls on, 
 Your power shall snatch the father and the son : 
 And make them live to teach succeeding days, 
 How one could merit, and how one could praise. 
 
 Speaking of this translation of mine, (and 
 of no other translation in my volume does 
 he intimate even a suspicion of the existence,) 
 Mr. Hayley says, " This translation has con- 
 siderable merit: but my opinion of the re- 
 spectable author's taste and candour is such, 
 that I persuade myself he will agree with me in 
 thinking the blank verse of Cowper, in expres- 
 sing the same ideas, has more happily caught 
 the sweetness and spirit of the original/' 
 
 To a compliment of this description I 
 shall not make any reply. If I could with 
 
 c See the preface to Cowper's translations of Milton's Latin 
 and Italian Poems, p. xvi. 
 
APPENDIX. 607 
 
 propriety transcribe in this place the entire 
 subject of Mr. Hayley's preference, I should 
 confidently leave to my readers the easy task 
 of deciding on that Gentleman's candour and 
 taste: but I must content myself with making 
 a short extract from the version in question ; 
 and for the sole purpose of subjoining a re- 
 mark on it. 
 
 " The fiery spirit pure, 
 
 That wheels yon circling orbs, directs himself 
 Their mazy dance with melody of verse, 
 Unutterable, immortal, hearing which 
 Huge Ophiuchus holds his hiss suppress'd, 
 Orion soften'd drops his ardent blade, 
 And Atlas stands unconscious of his load." 
 
 (COWPER'S Trans. &c. p. 60.) 
 
 In my translation of this verse in the ori- 
 ginal, 
 
 " Torrida dum rutilus compescit sibila SERPEKS," 
 
 I assumed the liberty of substituting one 
 constellation for another, Ophiuchus (the 
 serpent-holder, or Hercules strangling the 
 snakes,) for the serpent. This license, though 
 venial, I regarded as bold; and I was conse- 
 quently rather surprised when I discovered 
 in the version, published by Mr. Hayley, the 
 very same substitution, accompanied with the 
 whimsical impropriety of having the hisses of 
 Milton's serpent attributed to the man, who 
 
608 APPENDIX. 
 
 had been obtruded into the serpent's place. 
 In a note, I shall extract from Mr. Hay ley's 
 publication a few other passages in which 
 the likeness to some of my lines must be al- 
 lowed to be striking. If these translations in 
 their published state are truly and verbally 
 as they came from Mr. Cowper's pen, the 
 resemblance in every case must be acknow- 
 ledged to be fortuitous : for their respectable 
 author died before I thought of translating 
 any of Milton's Latin poems; and my work 
 issued from the press more than two years be- 
 fore these versions of Mr. Cowper's (with the 
 exception of those small portions of them which 
 were inserted in Mr. Hayley's biography) made 
 their appearance in the world. To those cri- 
 tics, who may either adopt Bishop Kurd's 
 canons on the marks of imitation or form 
 others for the regulation of their own judg- 
 ments, the matter of my note may suggest a 
 subject of curious speculation. 
 
 c On some coif'd brooder o'er a ten years cause, 
 Thunder the Norman gibberish of the laws. 
 
 Cowper, p. W). 
 
 Pompous and pregnant with a ten years cause, 
 The prating, puzzled pleader of the laws. 
 
 S. p. 66. 
 
 There virgins oft, unconscious what they prove, 
 What love is know not, yet unknowing love. 
 
 Cowper, p. 10. 
 
APPENDIX. 609 
 
 My friend, the reverend Francis Wrang- 
 
 There a new feeling oft the maiden proves j 
 Knows not 'tis love, but while she knows not, loves. 
 
 S. p. 66. 
 
 And I will e'en repass Cam's reedy pools, 
 And face once more the warfare of the schools. 
 
 Cowper, p. 13. 
 
 And, (fix'd my visit to Cam's rushy pools,) 
 To bear once more the murmur of the schools. 
 
 S. p. 69. 
 
 Another Leonora once inspired 
 Tasso, with fatal love to phrenzy fired. 
 
 Cowper, p. 42. 
 
 Another Leonora's charms inspired 
 
 The love that Tasso's phrenzied senses fired. 
 
 S. p. 14O. 
 
 And Hecaerge with the golden hair. 
 
 Cowper, p. 70. 
 And Hecaerge with the golden hair. 
 
 S. p. 154. 
 
 Won by his hospitable friend's desire, 
 
 He soothed his pains of exile with the lyre. 
 
 Cowper, p. 71. 
 
 Would sing, indulgent to his friend's desire, 
 And cheat his tedious exile with the lyre. 
 
 S. p. 155. 
 
 Ah ! blest indifference of the playful herd, 
 None by his fellow chosen or preferr'd, 
 
 Cowper, p 80. 
 
 How blest, where, none repulsed and none preferr'd, 
 One common friendship blends the lowing herd. 
 
 S. p, 190. 
 2 R 
 
610 APPENDIX. 
 
 ham, having favoured me with a complete 
 translation of the ode to Rouse, but at a pe- 
 riod too late to stand in its proper station in 
 my work, I am induced to insert the entire 
 composition in this place, that the reader 
 may see its beauties in the integrity of the 
 whole piece. Of the few verbal alterations, 
 which occur in the present copy, some were 
 made for the purpose of uniformity: for, not 
 emulous of the licentious vagrancy of the ori- 
 ginal, the translator has constructed his ode 
 on the more correct scheme of the Roman and 
 the English Muse. 
 
 TO 
 
 JOHN ROUSE, 
 
 The Librarian of the University of Oxford,^ 
 
 STROPHE I. 
 
 With one informing mind 
 Though looking with a twofold face, 
 Go, Book ! and, dressed with simple grace, 
 Unlaboured, speak what once the youth design'd : 
 
 While midst Ausonia's classic shade 
 Reclined, or in some native glade, 
 Yet guiltless of his country's ire 
 He struck or Rome's or Albion's lyre; 
 Or roused the thunder of the Tuscan chord, 
 And spurning earth's low tracts through fields empyreal soar'd. 
 
 d See p. 276 
 
APPENDIX. 611 
 
 ANTISTROPHE I. 
 
 What robber's guileful hand 
 When, at the call of friendship sent, 
 To Thamis' source thy steps were bent, 
 
 Filch' d thee, dwarf Volume, from thy brother-band? 
 To Thamis' source, their limpid store 
 Where the Pierian sisters pour ; 
 And, while the tide of choral song 
 Flows her sweet shades and flowers among, 
 
 Blazon'd for many an age long past by fame, 
 For many an age to come shall glitter Oxford's name. e 
 
 STROPHE II. 
 
 Would but some heavenly Power, 
 In pity on our sorrows smile, 
 (If sorrows yet have purged our isle, 
 And woe's atoning pang hath had its hour,) 
 Quell the fierce crowd's unhallow'd roar, 
 And back to their loved haunts restore 
 The banish'd Nine, who drooping roam 
 Without a comforter or home j 
 Wing his keen shaft against the noisome race, 
 And far from Delphi's stream the harpy-mischief chase. 
 
 e Quis te, parve liber, quis te fratribus 
 Subduxit reliquis doio? 
 Cum tu missus ab urbe, 
 Docto jugiter obsecrante amico, 
 Illustre tendebas iter 
 Thamesis ad incunabula 
 Caerulei patrisj 
 Fontes ubi limpidi 
 Aonidum, thyasusque sacer, 
 Orbi notus per immensos 
 Temporum lapsus redeunte ccelo, 
 Celeberque futurus in aevum ? 
 
APPENDIX. 
 
 ANTISTROPHE II. 
 
 But thou rejoice, dear Book, 
 Though late purloin'd by pilfering hand, 
 Or wandering from thy kindred band 
 
 Thou lurkest now in some inglorious nook ; 
 In some vile den thy honours torn, 
 Or by some palm mechanic worn, 
 Rejoice! for, lo! new hopes arise 
 That thou again may'st view the skies; 
 
 From Lethe's pool oblivious burst to day, 
 And win on <e sail-broad vans" to highest heaven thy way. 
 
 STROPHE III. 
 Thy strains to Rouse belong : 
 Thou, his by promise, art deplored, 
 As wanting to his perfect hoard, 
 By Rouse, firm guardian of eternal song 
 Rouse, who a nobler treasure keeps, 
 Than that on Delphi's craggy steeps, 
 In honour of Latona's child 
 By Grecia's pious bounty piled, 
 (Where Attic Ion watch'd the sacred door,) 
 Tripod, and votive vase, and all the holy store. f 
 
 f Nam te Rousius sui 
 Optat peculi, numeroque justo 
 Sibi pollicitum queritur abesse; 
 Rogatque venias ille, cujus inclyta 
 Sunt data virum monumenta curae : 
 Teque adytis etiam sacris 
 Voluit reponi, quibus et ipse praesidet, 
 ,/Eternorum operum custos fidelis; 
 Quaestorque gazae nobilioris 
 Qu&m cui prsefuit Ion, 
 Clarus Erechtheides, 
 Opulenta dei per templa parentis, 
 Fulvosque tripodas, donaque Delphica, 
 Ion, Actaea genitus Creusa. 
 
 For the other stanzas of the original Ode see p. 277, 2/8, 
 279, 280. 
 
APPENDIX. 613 
 
 ARISTROPHE III. 
 Tis thine to hail the groves, 
 Her vale's green charms where Oxford spreads: 
 Thine her fair domes and velvet meads, 
 Which more than his own Delos Phoebus loves 
 Than Pindus more ; and thine, proud choice! 
 (Since thou by friendship's partial voice 
 Art call'd to join the immortal band,) 
 Midst bards of giant fame to stand; 
 Bards of old Greece and Rome the light and pride, 
 Whose names shall float for aye on time's o'erwhelming tide. 
 
 EPODE. 
 
 And ye, my other toils, 
 Not toil'd in vain, some distant day 
 From Envy's fang shall speed your way, 
 Where Rouse protects and favouring Hermes smiles. 
 There nor the rabble shall revile, 
 Nor factious critics pour their bile : 
 But, hoarded to a happier age, 
 A purer race shall scan the page} 
 With heart unwarp'd your humble worth regard, 
 Trample on Spleen's pale corse, and bless the patriot bard. 
 
 Mr. Warton, the late Laureat, having 
 been frequently mentioned in the preceding 
 pages, and not always with that respect which 
 his friends imagine to be due to him, let me 
 openly avow, in this unconnected place, that 
 whatever credit for probity and worth I am 
 disposed to attribute to him as a man, I can 
 discover no superior merit in him as a writer; 
 and am compelled to class him with those, 
 who have accidentally been raised into cele- 
 
614 APPENDIX. 
 
 brity by the caprice of the day, above the 
 rightful claim of their intellectual endow- 
 ments or their literary acquisitions. Some of 
 his poetry may be allowed to be pretty: but 
 his learning was confined and superficial; and 
 his criticism, at all times weak, was almost 
 uniformly erroneous. He was not perhaps 
 an unuseful labourer in the leaden mines of 
 Gothic and English antiquity; and his bro- 
 ther antiquarians, who can learnedly descant 
 on the classification of the various species of 
 fools that have formerly flourished in our 
 happy land, may approach him with the re- 
 verence of the knee, and may assign to those, 
 who refuse to unite in the silly worship, what 
 opprobrious epithets they please: but unable 
 with any efforts to add to their own stature, 
 or to breathe the breath of life into their idol, 
 they will still continue to be little, and he to 
 be uninformed with a sparkle of the Divinity/ 
 Like all the small men in the world of 
 
 c See Deuce's " Illustrations of Shakspeare/' or rather the 
 article on this work in the British Critic,, for August 180S 
 [V. xxxii. 160.] Mr. Douce is a respectable writer and a gen- 
 tleman: but his friendly Critic has exceeded him in his generous 
 zeal for Mr. Warton's reputation, and has involved all, who refuse 
 to seat this author by the side of Aristotle and Homer, in one rush 
 of condemnation as " sciolists and slanderers." I know nothing of 
 the offences of others against the fame of the late Laureat : but I 
 know that the anger of his friends is too indiscriminate in its ex- 
 pressions, and cannot be of any use to their cause. Its scribble 
 however will be little read and less regarded. 
 
APPENDIX. 615 
 
 letters, Mr. Warton would sometimes indulge 
 himself with an attack upon the great. Of 
 the many blows which he aimed at Milton, 
 and to which he was incited, no doubt, by the 
 zeal of his tory virtue, some have been no- 
 ticed in the course of the present work: but 
 other favourites of the Muse could not escape 
 him. For borrowing two or three expres- 
 sions from II Penseroso and the Comus, Mr. 
 W. could thus speak of Pope: " But Pope 
 was a gleaner of the old English poets; and 
 he was here pilfering from obsolete English 
 poetry without the least fear or danger of being 
 detected 11 !!!" A few years, however, will sweep 
 this acute and candid detector of plagiarism 
 to oblivion; and will leave the laurel of 
 Eloisa's poet without the vestige of a stain. 
 The Laureates brother, the late most respect- 
 able and amiable master of Winchester school, 
 certainly possessed more liberality of senti- 
 ment and a finer taste: but I am assured, by 
 those who knew them and are more com- 
 petent to decide upon the question than my- 
 self, that on the whole he was the inferior 
 man. It may be so, and I stand corrected; 
 and whenever again I may have occasion to 
 speak of them, Thomas shall be placed in the 
 sentence before Joseph. 
 
 < Wart. ed. of Milt. Juv. Poems, p. 1Q3- 
 
6l6 APPENDIX. 
 
 In Lord Teignmouth's elegant biography, 
 a work which ought to be placed in the hands 
 of every young man of talents and ambition, 
 we find a letter/ addressed by the great and 
 amiable Sir William Jones to the Countess 
 Dowager Spencer, in which the writer speaks 
 of Forest-hill, near Oxford, as of a place in 
 which Milton " spent some part of his life;" 
 which he chose for his retirement soon after 
 the event of his first marriage; where he wrote 
 I/Allegro and II Penseroso; and where tra- 
 dition still preserves the memory of the poet's 
 residence, and points to the ruins of his 
 chamber. 
 
 To those, who have perused the preceding 
 volume, it will be superfluous to remark that 
 this relation is founded altogether upon error. 
 No biographical circumstances can be ascer- 
 tained with more precision than are the va- 
 rious residences of Milton. By Edward Phi- 
 lips, who must have been acquainted with 
 the facts which he assumes to relate, for he 
 was then an inmate with his uncle, we are 
 informed that Milton, about Whitsuntide, 
 (in 1643,) after a month's absence from his 
 house in Aldersgate Street, returned home 
 with his wife, Mary Powell; that the Lady, 
 when she had cohabited for a month with 
 
 d Memoirs of the Life of Sir William Jones, p. 67. 
 
APPENDIX. 
 
 617 
 
 her husband, deserted him, and did not again 
 see him till the memorable period of their 
 reconciliation, about the middle of 1645; 
 that she was then lodged, in the first instance, 
 at the house of a female relation, and was 
 soon afterwards settled with her husband in 
 his new mansion in Barbican ; that under this 
 protecting roof her parents and their family 
 almost immediately sought an asylum, which 
 they continued to enjoy till 1647; and that the 
 Powells then returned to Forest-hill, unac- 
 companied, (as is evident from the negative 
 testimony of the biographer,) by Milton ; whose 
 numerous and weighty occupations, indeed, 
 must necessarily have exacted his presence in 
 town. We may be certain therefore that Mil- 
 ton never saw Forest-hill after his departure 
 from it on his marriage, nor ever resided there 
 longer than during the month of his courtship. 
 In this inlerval indeed it is possible, though, 
 as I think, not probable that he wrote I/ Allegro 
 and II Penseroso, and if to the impression of 
 Forest-hill and its scenery we are indebted for 
 the production of these exquisite pieces, we 
 may forgive it for its offence as the seat, and 
 perhaps the birthplace of the proud and the 
 paltry Powells. The letter, to which I refer, 
 is so admirably written, and offers so much 
 pleasure to the imagination, that every reader 
 must lament with me the circumstances of its 
 
618 APPENDIX. 
 
 being destitute of the requisite ground of 
 fact. As no doubt can be entertained of the 
 truth of the story as far as Sir W. Jones's 
 immediate responsibility in it extends, we 
 must account for the tradition, of which he 
 speaks, by supposing that Milton's subsequent 
 celebrity attached so much consequence to 
 the house which he had casually inhabited 
 for a month, as to consecrate it, in the neigh- 
 bourhood, to fame. The discovery in the 
 ruined mansion of " papers in Milton's own 
 hand," is mentioned by Sir W. Jones only as 
 a report: but, allowing the information to 
 have been correct, the existence of papers in 
 a place., where the writer had certainly re- 
 sided and which belonged to his immediate 
 connexions, can easily be conceived without 
 incurring the necessity of drawing from it 
 any more extensive inference. To oppose 
 such a circumstance to that direct and strong 
 evidence, on which the leading events in the 
 preceding narrative are recorded, would be 
 idle and unjustifiable in the extreme. 
 
 Having had occasion more than once in 
 the preceding pages to mention the name of 
 Lauder, I conceive it to be proper to give 
 some account of this unfortunate man's con- 
 duct as it is connected with the history of 
 
APPENDIX. 619 
 
 Milton, and has justly stampt the character 
 of this enemy of our great poet with inde- 
 lible infamy. 
 
 In the year 1747, William Lauder, a 
 teacher of the Latin tongue and a man cer- 
 tainly possessing both talents and learning, 
 excited general attention by publishing in 
 the Gentleman's Magazine, for the months 
 of January, February, and March, a paper, 
 signed with the initials W. L. which he 
 called " Milton's Use and Imitation of the 
 Moderns;" intended to prove that our illus- 
 trious epic bard had been considerably in- 
 debted to some modern Latin poets of very 
 inferior fame, from whose works extracts, in 
 support of the alleged discovery, were pro- 
 duced. To this essay, of which the male- 
 volence was discernible through the mode- 
 ration of its language, three answers were 
 given in the same periodical pamphlet, and 
 Milton was defended against the charge of 
 plagiarism, without the intimation of any 
 doubt respecting the authenticity of Lauder's 
 quotations. 
 
 Emboldened by his escape from detec- 
 tion and now seemingly confident of ultimate 
 success, the impostor in the beginning of the 
 year 1750 published, under the same title, 
 that larger essay which he had promised. 
 
620 APPENDIX. 
 
 Though the intemperate language of this work 
 would no longer suffer it to be a doubt, not- 
 withstanding the strong assertion of probity 
 in its concluding paragraph, whether malice 
 or the love of truth was the writer's actuat- 
 ing motive, Mr. Samuel Johnson, who, from 
 his known connexion at this period with 
 Cave, the editor of the Gentleman's Maga- 
 zine, may fairly be concluded not to have 
 been unassociated with Lander's former pub- 
 lication, did not scruple to ornament it with 
 a preface and a postscript, and thus to make 
 himself an accomplice in the malignity, if 
 candour obliges us to admit his ignorance of 
 the frauds of its author. This essay, the as- 
 sertions e of which, extending far beyond its 
 
 To gratify the curiosity of my readers I will transcribe for 
 them some of the passages from this malignant publication, 
 premising that they are taken, without any very curious selec- 
 tion, from many others stampt with equal or with greater 
 rancour. 
 
 P. 50. 
 
 " The case is exactly the same/' (says Lauder speaking of a 
 passage, which he had himself fabricated for Grotius, and 
 which, as he affirms, Milton " borrowed without any intention of 
 making an acknowledgment,) " in a thousand other places, where 
 much false incense has been offered on the wrong altar, and 
 many lavish encomiums unjustly prostituted." 
 
 P. 71. 
 
 " The State of Innocence or Fall of Man," is a proof how 
 readily Milton's poem, which was founded on a tragedy, " (the 
 
APPENDIX. 621 
 
 pretended proofs, affected the entire over- 
 
 Adamus exul of the juvenile Grotius,)" may be reduced to a 
 tragedy again. But there is this remarkable difference between 
 the two authors, that Dry den, though never reputed a man of 
 the strictest morals, frankly acknowledged to whom he stood 
 obliged, while Milton, notwithstanding his high pretensions to 
 integrity, most industriously concealed his obligations." 
 
 P. 72, 73. 
 
 " He" (Grotius) " has as much reason to complain of ungrate- 
 ful usage at Milton's hand, as the prince of the Latin poets 
 when he exclaimed with indignation, from a consciousness of 
 injury done him by Bathyllus, 
 
 " Hos ego versiculos feci, tulit alter honores." 
 
 P. 74. 
 
 After ridiculing the honours, which had been paid to Milton 
 on the false supposition of his originality, and of the truth with 
 which he asserts that his song 
 
 pursues 
 
 " Things unattempted yet in prose or rhyme,'' 
 
 Lauder says, with reference to one of the vindicators of the great 
 poet, " But I must take the liberty to inform him that my no- 
 tions of morality taught me quite another lesson than to bestovr 
 the praise due to ingenuity and integrity on persons of a dif- 
 ferent character." 
 
 P. 77 
 
 tf Tis true Ramsay's poem has been lately called a cento 
 from Virgil ; but I hope to shew (and I think I have partly done 
 it already) that Milton stands infinitely more exposed to that 
 censure, being compiled out of all authors, ancient or modern , 
 sacred or profane, who had any thing in their works suitable to 
 
622 APPENDIX. 
 
 throw of Milton's poetical and indeed moral 
 
 his purpose : nor do I blame him for this unlimited freedom, but 
 for his industriously concealing it. 
 
 P. 86. 
 
 " By this time, I hope, tfye mist of delusion begins to dis- 
 perse: for though Milton has been so long in possession of Pa- 
 radise that he may even plead prescription in his favour, yet I 
 have ventured (and I think successfully) to call his title in ques- 
 tion; as unjustly acquired at first, and which therefore, no length 
 of time can make valid; according to that known and approved 
 maxim, quod ab initio vitiosum est tractu temporis non con- 
 valescit." 
 
 P. 115. 
 
 ff And here I could produce a whole cloud of witnesses, as 
 fresh vouchers of the truth of my assertion, with whose fine sen- 
 timents, -as so many gay feathers, Milton has plumed himself 5 
 like one who would adorn a garland with flowers, secretly taken 
 out of various gardens; or a crown with jewels, stolen from the 
 different diadems, or repositories of princes; by which means 
 he shines indeed, but with a borrowed lustre a surreptitious 
 majesty." 
 
 P. 133. 
 
 " In the sixth book (the greatest part of which, I have al- 
 ready observed, is ungenerously copied from this young Ger- 
 man." ^Taubman,) &c. 
 
 P. 138. 
 
 " This elegant work," (Taubman's Bellum Angelicum,) 
 " among many others, has enabled Milton to reach the summit of 
 Parnassus more truly than that extraordinary poetical inspiration 
 which the deluded world has imagined him possessed of." 
 
APPENDIX. 623 
 
 reputation, was inscribed by Lauder to the 
 two Universities; and the cause, between the 
 accuser and the numerous admirers of the 
 British Homer, was now brought to a decisive 
 issue. In this state of things, the indignant 
 and agitated public was under the necessity 
 of acquiescing for the space nearly of a 
 twelvemonth; during which period the forger 
 and his auxiliary were permitted to triumph., 
 
 P. 161. 
 
 The circumstance of Milton's refusing to instruct his daugh- 
 ters in the languages, which he taught them to read to him, 
 was a contrivance, according to Lauder, to keep them in igno- 
 rance of his thefts. " Milton well knew" (says this strange 
 man,) " the loquacious and incontinent spirit of the sexj and 
 the danger, on that account, of intrusting them with so import- 
 ant a secret as his unbounded plagiarism : he, therefore, wisely 
 confined them to the knowledge of the words and pronunciation 
 pnly, but kept the sense and meaning to himself." Lauder 
 strictly observes the precept of the critic, 
 
 servetur ad imum 
 
 Quails ab incepto processerit et sihi constet. 
 
 The essay concludes in the same inveterate and rancorous 
 spirit with a solemn assertion of the author's purity of motive 
 in the love of truth, and with an apology for his not having 
 " confined himself within the bounds of decency and modera- 
 tion," drawn from the asperity of the controversial language of 
 Milton himself, '5 who liberally dealt his thunder on all with 
 whom he happened to be engaged 5 and 
 
 SUA QU1SQUE IXEMPLA DEBKT JEQUO ANIMO PATI. 
 
 To this work be it for ever remembered that Samuel Johnson 
 gave his deliberate and unqualified sanction!!! 
 
624 APPENDIX. 
 
 one for his gratified animosity to the fame 
 of the great poet, and the other for the suc- 
 cess of his fraudulent contrivances. 
 
 About the end of the same year, (1750,) 
 Mr. Douglas, the rector of Eaton Constan- 
 tine in Shropshire, (who lately died f with 
 the mitre of Salisbury on his brow,) addressed 
 to the Earl of Bath a letter intitled, " Mil- 
 ton vindicated from the charge of plagiarism 
 brought against him by Mr. Lauder." Hav- 
 ing in this pamphlet first clearly proved that 
 Lauder's quotations, allowing them to be au- 
 thentic, would not support the charges, urged 
 with so much 'indecent vehemence against 
 Milton, of plagiarism and an immoral con- 
 cealment of truth, the acute and able critic 
 proceeds to show that, with impudence un- 
 parallelled in the annals of literary impos- 
 ture, the passages, which had been cited 
 from Masenius, Staphorstius, Taubmannus, 
 and the other obscure writers presented on 
 this occasion to the public notice, had been 
 adapted to the forger's design by the inter- 
 polation of lines either immediately fabri- 
 cated for the purpose, or transcribed with- 
 out alteration from Hogg's translation of the 
 Paradise Lost. 
 
 f On the 18th of May, 1 80/, in his 86th year universally be- 
 loved and lamented. 
 
APPENDIX. 62.5 
 
 On this complete and irresistible evidence 
 of Lander's defective morality, they 5 who 
 in any way had been connected with his 
 publications, thought it expedient to clear 
 themselves from the suspicion of any parti- 
 cipation of his crimes. In this measure of 
 prudence or of probity, his booksellers, (Payne 
 and Bouquet in Paternoster Row,) very ho- 
 nourably took the lead. On the appearance 
 of Mr. Douglas's pamphlet, they instantly 
 acquainted Lauder that he must either dis- 
 prove the charge, now brought against him, 
 of forgery, by placing in their hands those 
 editions of his authors from which he had 
 made his extracts, or that they would " pub- 
 licly disclaim all connexion with him, and 
 expose his declining the only step left for his 
 defence/' On his impudently avowing to 
 them his dishonest practices, they hastened 
 to execute their threat, and to vindicate their 
 conduct to the world. Their advertisement 
 on this occasion is candid, manly, and ex- 
 plicit ; and it is remarkable for advancing, 
 in extenuation of their credulity, the same 
 excuse which was afterwards urged, with 
 less propriety and a smaller probability of 
 truth, by Ladder's literary accomplice/ that 
 
 s Johnson is reported to have said that he thought " the 
 man too frantic to be fraudulent." 
 
 2 S 
 
626 APPENDIX. 
 
 " the man's want of capacity to contrive and 
 execute a fraud precluded a suspicion of 
 abuse and interpolation." From the book- 
 sellers, who saw the violence of Lauder and 
 were unable to appreciate his powers, this 
 apology might very well be received ; but it 
 certainly came with an ill grace from the 
 mouth of Johnson, who had been connected 
 with the impostor, as is highly probable, for 
 more than two years, and who could not 
 on any supposition be a stranger to the 
 acuteness of his intellect or the malice of 
 his heart. In this exigency however, it was 
 requisite for Johnson to be active in dis- 
 avowing his association with falsehood; and 
 accordingly he wrote for Lauder a letter of 
 penitence and confession, and induced him 
 to address it as his own to Mr. Douglas. 
 The fate of this ill-starred letter seems to 
 have been singularly unfortunate. It failed 
 to satisfy the public, and, while it hurt the 
 feelings, it promoted none of the purposes 
 of Lauder: by Lauder indeed it was subse- 
 quently disowned, with some intimation of 
 doubt respecting the good faith of his offi- 
 cious friend, on whom he professes to have 
 reposed with the most perfect confidence. 
 
 The cause of Lander's hostility to Milto^ 
 as it is assigned in this publication, is of a na- 
 
APPENDIX. 627 
 
 ture too curious to be suppressed. Lander, 
 as it seems, had edited, for the use of schools, 
 a translation of the psalms into Latin verse 
 by Arthur Johnston, a Scotch physician; and 
 had pleased himself with the prospect of an 
 income from an annual edition of the work: 
 but his hopes of profit had been intercepted 
 by a wicked couplet h of Pope's in the Dun- 
 ciad, which had thrown the Scotch translator 
 into contempt, and had consequently checked 
 the sale of his production. " I had no par- 
 ticular pleasure/' (says Lauder, or rather 
 Johnson for him,) " in subverting the reputa- 
 tion of Milton, which I had myself once en- 
 deavoured to exalt, and of which the foun- 
 dation had always remained untouched by 
 me had not my credit and my interest been 
 blasted, or thought to be blasted by the 
 shade which it cast from its boundless ele- 
 vation/' Then follows the story which I 
 have related, and which the letter-writer thus 
 concludes: " On this occasion it was na- 
 tural not to be pleased ; and my resentment, 
 
 h Speaking of Benson, the poet says, 
 
 " On two unequal crutches propp'd he came, 
 Milton's on this on that one Johnston's name.' 1 
 
 The unprincipled Lauder assigned afterwards other reasons for 
 his conduct : but he seems principally to have been actuated bj 
 a wish of calling the public attention to those obscure Latin 
 poets of which he was then meditating an edition. 
 
628 APPENDIX. 
 
 seeking to discharge itself somewhere, was 
 unhappily directed against Milton"!!! 
 
 The contrition, which Lauder had been 
 made to express in this letter, was soon disco- 
 vered to be altogether fictitious. In 1754 he 
 published another malignant pamphlet; in 
 which he shows that his former design was 
 not dropped, and threatens to " reinforce 
 the charge of plagiarism against the English 
 poet, and to fix it upon him by irrefragable 
 conviction in the face of the whole world/' 
 This ne\v publication was intitled, " King 
 Charles vindicated from the charge of pla- 
 giarism, brought against him by Milton, and 
 Milton himself convicted of forgery and a 
 gross imposition on the public:" and its ob- 
 ject was to prove that Milton, for the pur- 
 pose of bringing discredit on the Icon Basi- 
 likfe, had interpolated this supposed produc- 
 tion of royal authorship with Pamela's prayer 
 from the Arcadia of Sidney. Though this 
 unspecious falsehood was afterwards deemed 
 of sufficient consequence to be revived,' with 
 a notable and hardy contempt of truth, by the 
 great literary patron of Lauder, it was now 
 unable to obtain that degree of regard which 
 was requisite to render it of any use to its au- 
 thor: and, failing in this attempt to conci- 
 liate the protection of the high royalist party, 
 
APPENDIX. 629 
 
 he was compelled to retire before the po- 
 pular resentment to the West Indies; where 
 he is reported to have perished under the 
 oppression of penury and contempt. The 
 fate of his coadjutor was far more pros- 
 perous 
 
 Ille crucem tulit hie diadema. 
 
 Johnson survived the disgrace of his infa- 
 mous alliance to enjoy the opportunity of 
 attempting, with much deeper though not 
 more effectual wounds, the impassible repu- 
 tation of Milton. 
 
 To vindicate him from the imputation, 
 to which he became exposed by his inter- 
 course with Lauder, it has been urged by 
 Johnson's friends that the zeal with which 
 he espoused the necessities of Milton's de- 
 scendant, Mrs. Foster, and the praise which 
 he has assigned to the great poet's muse 
 place him above the suspicion of being ac- 
 tuated, in this instance of his conduct, by 
 malice. I must be forgiven if I remark that 
 this offer of vindication is both irrelevant and 
 defective; irrelevant, as benevolence to the 
 living, allowing it to be unalloyed with any 
 base mixture of ostentation or interest, may 
 unite in perfect consistency with enmity to 
 the dead; defective, as the praise, to which 
 the appeal has been so confidently made, is 
 
630 APPENDIX. 
 
 evidently penurious, reluctant, compelled by 
 the demand of the critic's own character, 
 and uniformly dashed and qualified with 
 something of an opposite nature : 
 
 medto de fonte leporum 
 
 Surgit amari aliquid quod in ipsis floribus angat. 
 
 While he was depreciating the fame of the 
 illustrious ancestor, Johnson could not act 
 more prudently, or in a way more likely to 
 lead him to his final object, than by acquir- 
 ing easy credit as the friend of the distressed 
 grandchild; and the prologue which he wrote 
 for her benefit, and which is little more than 
 a versification of what he had before attached 
 to the pamphlet sullied with Lauder's ma- 
 lignity and forgeries, has fully answered the 
 writer's purposes by the imputed liberality 
 which it has obtained for him, and the 
 means with which it has thus supplied him 
 of striking, during the repose of suspicion, 
 the more pernicious blow. Avowed hosti- 
 lity generally defeats its own object; and 
 the semblance of kindness has commonly 
 been assumed by the efficient assassin for the 
 perpetration of his design. Whether, in 
 short, in the instance before us, Johnson in- 
 dulged, as his friends would persuade us to 
 believe, the charitable propensities of his 
 
APPENDIX. 631 
 
 own heart, or availed himself of the oppor- 
 tunity to provide for the interests of his own 
 character, the measure may be allowed to 
 have been good, or to have been wise, but 
 cannot be admitted, in opposition to the tes- 
 timony of formidable facts, to have been de- 
 monstrative of his favourable disposition to- 
 ward Milton. 
 
 If Johnson's conduct, as a critic on the 
 poetic works of our great bard, be made the 
 subject of our attention, we shall examine it 
 in vain for the proof of that regard which 
 it is said to exhibit for the reputation of the 
 author of Paradise Lost. Let us recollect 
 that the smaller poems of our illustrious 
 writer were pronounced by Johnson to be 
 " peculiar without excellence, and, if dif- 
 fering from the verses of others, differing for 
 the worse;" that in Milton's Latin poetry the 
 critic saw nothing but what was inferior to 
 the Latin compositions of Cowley and of 
 May; that he made the Lycidas the object 
 of his perverse censure, and affected to hold 
 its admirers in contempt; that his applause 
 of L'Allegro and II Penseroso was formal 
 and jejune; that he detracted, as much as a 
 sense of decency would permit him, from 
 the merit of the Comus; that his strictures 
 on the Samson Agonistes were severe; and 
 that his high and splendid panegyric on the 
 
632 APPENDIX. 
 
 Paradise Lost was connected with a remark, 
 which, on its admission, would at once lay 
 the lofty edifice of praise in the dust, and by 
 proving that this glorious epic was destitute 
 of the first great requisite of poetry, the 
 power of pleasing, would demonstrate it, 
 with all its imputed excellences, to be an in- 
 different poem: let us recollect all this, and 
 then let the most candid among us seriously 
 determine whether the critic be superior to 
 the suspicion of wishing for an opportunity to 
 blast the laurels of Milton. 1 In Johnson's de- 
 fence it is idle to adduce the elevated terms in 
 which he has occasionally mentioned our epic 
 bard: Lauder himself has extolled him with 
 panegyric equally lofty ; k and the result of 
 
 1 If we are desirous of positive and precise testimony re- 
 specting the existence, at the period in question, of malevolence 
 to the fame of Milton in the breast of Johnson, we have only 
 to turn to the -276th page of Sir John Hawkins's life of this 
 author. " While the book" [Lauder's Essay) " was in the press, 
 the proof sheets/' says this biographer, " were submitted to the 
 inspection of our club by a member of it who had an interest 
 in its publication, and I could all along perceive that Johnson 
 seemed to approve not only of the design, but of the argument* 
 and seemed to exult in a persuasion that the reputation of Milton 
 was likely to suffer by this discovery." To this assertion made by 
 a person immediately conversant with the fact, and not interested 
 to misrepresent it by a person, who was the intimate of John- 
 son throughout his life, and was appointed one of his executors 
 by his will, nothing has been or can be opposed but the futile evi- 
 dence of that praise with which Johnson, as a critic, has occa- 
 sionally spoken of the poetry of Milton. 
 
 k ,For the proof of this assertion I will not ransack Lauder's 
 
APPENDIX. 633 
 
 strong censure, or even of cold praise, would 
 have been more injurious to the critic than 
 to the poet. The Paradise Lost was unques- 
 tionably a noble poem: but if it could have 
 been shown to be the produce of theft, the 
 
 first papers in the Gentleman's Magazine, where it might be 
 found, but will transcribe his epitaph on the author of Paradise 
 Lost. 
 
 Virorum maximus, JOHANNES MILTONUS, Poeta celeber- 
 rimusj non Angliae modo, soli natalis, verum generis humani 
 ornamentum: cujus eximius liber, Anglicanis versions con- 
 scriptus, vulgo PARADISUS AMISSUS, immortalis illud ingenii 
 monumentum, cum ipsa fere aeternitate perennaturum est opus! 
 Hujus memoriam Angiorum primus, post tantum, proh dolor! 
 ab tanti excessu poetae intervallum, statua eleganti in loco cele- 
 berrimo, coenobio Westmonasteriensi, posita, regum, principum, 
 antistitum, illustriumque Angliae virorum caemeterio, vir ornatis- 
 ilmus Gulielmus Benson prosecutus est. 
 
 The remarks, which Lauder makes on this evidence of his 
 veneration for Milton, are worthy also of our notice. " A cha- 
 racter as high and honourable as ever was bestowed upon him 
 by the most sanguine of his admirers! and as this was my cool 
 and sincere opinion of that wonderful man formerly, so I de- 
 clare it to be the same still, and ever will be, notwithstanding 
 all appearances to the contrary, occasioned merely by passion 
 and resentment j which appear however by the " Postscript" 
 to the Essay, to be so far from extending to the posterity of 
 Milton, that I recommend his only remaining descendant in 
 the warmest terms to the public." 
 
 Here are panegyric and benevolence, of which Milton and 
 his granddaughter are the objects, of as high and ardent a na- 
 ture as any which have been expressed by Dr. Johnson. In 
 diction and imagery the Scotch schoolmaster is evidently infe- 
 rior to the English critic and moralist : but in admiration of 
 the deceased poet, and in charity toward the survivor of the 
 poet's family, the notorious Lauder refuses to be outdone by tb 
 celebrated Johnson. 
 
634 APPENDIX. 
 
 fabricator's proud name would have been an- 
 nihilated, and the purposes of his enemy ac- 
 complished. The hostile attempt was cer- 
 tainly made; and its failure could not have 
 been witnessed without painful disappoint- 
 ment by the writer of that Life of Milton, 
 which was unhappily sent into the world 
 under the sanction of the booksellers of Lon- 
 don. Of the radical and pervading malignity 
 of this work no doubt can for an instant be 
 entertained by any dispassionate reader, and 
 it may justly be questioned whether, as the 
 writer of the Rambler and of the Life of 
 Milton, Dr. Johnson has evinced more friend- 
 liness or more enmity to the cause of truth, 
 has effected more good or offered more injury 
 to the great interests of his species. By a 
 party among my contemporaries I am aware 
 that this doubt will be strongly, and perhaps 
 acrimoniously resented: but, if a page like 
 mine may hope to survive to a distant age, 
 I feel assured that, by the judgment of a ge- 
 neration remote from the prejudices of the 
 present, I shall be absolved from the charge 
 of wounding truth to gratify passion, even 
 though I should assert that the delinquency 
 of the libellous biographer is ill compensated 
 by the merit of the monotonous and heavy - 
 gaited morality of the gloomy and dogmatic 
 essayist. 
 
APPENDIX. 635 
 
 POSTSCRIPT. 
 
 I HAD pleased myself with the hope of 
 producing this edition of my Life of Milton 
 in a stale of complete typographical correct- 
 ness: but, with the general fate of human 
 hopes, mine has been disappointed. Having 
 been called into a distant part of the island, 
 while the sheets were passing through the 
 press, some of my corrected proofs never 
 came to the Printer's hand; and a little inac- 
 curacy has been the inevitable consequence 
 of their miscarriage. A few trifling errors 
 have also escaped my own eye, which is not 
 always minutely correct when exercised in 
 the literal revision of my own compositions; 
 and I have not been in a situation to avail 
 myself of the assistance of a friend. In p. 60 
 in the first line of the note a superfluous, " a," 
 has accidentally fallen between, " nocenda," 
 and " numina." In 1. 5 from the bottom of 
 p. 62, " Calorum," is printed for " Carolum." 
 In the note at p. 114, the scholar will find 
 " Iveo-Tctfct" divided into two words. In 1. 15 
 of p. 121 instead of, " in only," it should be, 
 as it was in the first edition, " only in/' Of 
 page 216 the last word (in the note) should 
 be " three" and not two." In the 15th 1. of 
 p. 219 " Concialitory" is printed for " Con- 
 
636 APPENDIX. 
 
 ciliatory." In 1. 5 from the bottom of p. 36? 
 " august um" is substituted for " angustum." 
 In the note of p. 407, " Du Tarn should pro- 
 perly be the Tarn." At p. 428 in the note, the 
 last word of Sarrau's first distich is printed, 
 eoles, instead of " coles:" and in the line 
 preceding this distich, " least/' ought to be 
 " most." I will beg that for, " reciprocality," 
 in the 51 1th page, may be read " recipro- 
 cation :" and in the note of p. 535, that la 
 Harpe may be written instead of " Le 
 Harpe." If the learned reader should ob- 
 serve that the nice accentuation of the Greek 
 is not always very punctiliously executed, he is 
 desired to forgive it, from the almost insuper- 
 able difficulty of having so delicate a business 
 accurately conducted without the immediate 
 and constant superintendence of the author's 
 eye in the very office of the Printer. I must 
 now acknowledge and correct errors in which 
 the Printer has no participation. In the last 
 line of page 149? for, " without any other re- 
 ference than to that of metre" I would write, 
 " with reference only to metre:" and in the 
 22d line of page 154, I am desirous of sub- 
 stituting, " the sisters" for, " the fathers of 
 the Druid line," as a change which is required 
 by the conclusion of the paragraph. Chorea 
 is a ring or set of dancers without any res- 
 
APPENDIX. 637 
 
 pect to their sex: but it is evident by what 
 follows that these bearers of the Druid-offer- 
 ings to Apollo were intended by Milton to be 
 females; and it is extraordinary that this 
 effect of my inadvertency should not occur to 
 any one of my public or my private critics; 
 or to myself, till my translation had passed 
 twice through the press. 
 
 On the subject of errors which I am soli- 
 citous to rectify, let me not omit to refer to 
 one which may be regarded as of no trifling 
 moment. In a letter to an eminent bookseller 
 in London, which the writer desired his cor- 
 respondent to communicate to me, Mr. J. 
 Cooper Walker, whose name is known with 
 so much distinction in the literary world, 
 mentioned that " there was in the library of 
 the college of Dublin a collection of Milton's 
 pamphlets, bound in one volume, with an 
 inscription in his own hand-writing to his 
 friend Junius, to whom the book had been 
 presented/' Not doubting that this Junius 
 was the kinsman of Isaac Vossius, and the 
 writer of the treatise, " De Picturd Veterum," 
 who passed some time in England and was a 
 friend of Milton's, I stated the fact according 
 to my conception of it, and adduced Mr. 
 C. Walker as my authority for the satement. 
 Subsequently however, suspicious of the in- 
 formation which I had given, I wrote to Dr. 
 
638 APPENDIX. 
 
 Butson, the bishop of Clonfert, whose talents, 
 erudition, and moral worth make me proud 
 to challenge him as my friend, for some 
 more specific intelligence on the topic in 
 question; and to the kindness of this most 
 respectable prelate am I now indebted for 
 the power of correcting the mistake of which 
 I have been guilty in the note to p. 396. The 
 person, to whom is inscribed the volume pre- 
 served in the library of Trin. Coll. Dublin, 
 was Patrick Young, the librarian of Charles I. 
 The words and the arrangement of the inscrip- 
 tion are the following: 
 
 Ad doctissimum virum 
 
 Patri : Junium, Johannes 
 
 Miltonus, haec sua, 
 
 unum in fasciculum 
 
 conjecta, mittit, paucis 
 
 hujusmodi lectoribus 
 
 contentus. 
 
 Patrick Young, who was a prebendary of 
 St. Paul's, was probably Milton's neighbour, 
 when the latter resided in St. Bride's Church- 
 yard; and this circumstance, with the natural 
 effect of learning to conciliate its votaries, 
 might be sufficient to cement a friendship 
 between these two great scholars, notwith- 
 standing the opposition of their political 
 principles. In the pure sunshine of Athens 
 or of Rome, the republican Milton and the 
 royalist Young might meet and entertain each 
 
APPENDIX. 639 
 
 other, without attending to the gloomy and 
 pestilential atmosphere which, in that disas- 
 trous season, covered and diseased their na- 
 tive island. 
 
 For these errors of oversight or misappre- 
 hension which I have acknowledged, and 
 for many more of a similar nature which 
 may have escaped rny detection, I will en- 
 treat the pardon of my readers; and will 
 hope that, imitating the candour of the great 
 Roman critic and poet, while they see my 
 faults they will suggest the venial cause of 
 them in the common imperfection of the mind 
 of man. 
 
 Sunt delicta tamen quibus ignovisse velimus. 
 
 Nam neque chorda sonum reddit quern vult manuset mensj 
 
 Poscentique gravem persaepe remittit acutum : 
 
 Nee semper feriet quodcunque minabitur arcus. 
 
 HoR.De Art Poet. 34?. 
 
 But if, refusing the indulgence which I 
 solicit, my readers will be strict in remarking 
 the imperfections of my page, I can only 
 address them in the terms, in which the great 
 and the modest Locke addressed Bishop Stil- 
 lingfleet: " I see that you would have me 
 exact, and without any faults; and I wish 
 that I could be so, the better to deserve your 
 approbation/' 
 
 More than half of this volume had passed 
 
640 APPENDIX. 
 
 the press, before I obtained a sight of Mr. 
 TodcPs second edition of the poetical works 
 of my author; and to this circumstance must 
 be imputed my apparent inattention to this 
 respectable publication. To Mr.Todd I have 
 formerly professed obligations for the infor- 
 mation with which he has supplied me; and 
 had I been able to avail myself, at the proper 
 period, of this new edition of his biographical 
 and editorial labours, I might possibly have 
 had more obligations of a similar nature to 
 acknowledge. Of some of the new matter 
 however, with which his industrious researches 
 have enabled him to enlarge his biography, 
 I was already possessed; and much of the 
 rest I should not perhaps have been very so- 
 licitous to employ. With respect to his edi- 
 tion of our great poet, I must think that the 
 variorum notes are much too numerous, and 
 that their bulk might very advantageously 
 have been diminished. In two instances, 
 which have occurred to me on a hasty glance 
 through the volumes, the commentary (the 
 general character of which is redundancy) 
 proves to be deficient. On that place in the 
 C 2d book of Paradise Lost, 592 
 
 A gulf profound as that Serbonian bog, 
 'Twi;:t Dnrniata and mount Casius old, 
 Where armies whole have sunk : 
 
APPENDIX. 6'41 
 
 the classical prototype is not cited ; and 
 we are referred to Herodotus and Lucan, in 
 none of whose pages is to be found any 
 authority for the assertion in the line dis- 
 tinguished by italics. The passage to which 
 Milton immediately points on this occasion is 
 in Diodorus. After describing the lake Ser- 
 bonis, this historian says, Sto *ai 
 
 TV}!/ iSlOTIjTOt, T% TOTTVj fJLSTOt 
 
 " Wherefore many, wandering from the pro- 
 per road, and not previously acquainted with 
 the nature of this place, have, with their whole 
 armies, been swallowed up in it." Dio. Sic. 
 1. 35. ed. Wessel. 1746. 
 
 The other instance of omission, to which I 
 allude, is in the 7th book of the Paradise 
 Lost, 1. 142 
 
 " by whose aid, 
 This inaccessible high strength the seat 
 Of Deity supreme, us dispossessed, 
 He trusted to have seised, &:c. 
 
 In this passage, " vis/* by the invariable 
 rule of the English Grammar ought to be, 
 " we;" and yet the error is not noticed in -the 
 commentary. But it is not intended to throw 
 trifles of this nature into the scale to weigh 
 against the general merit of the edition. Of 
 more consequence however is the neglect 
 
 2 T 
 
642 APPENDIX. 
 
 throughout these volumes of the proper poetic 
 orthography; or the indiscriminate and un- 
 systematic excision of the e, in the inflected 
 tenses and the perfect participle of the verb. 
 By this inconsiderate conduct of the Editor 
 much mischief has been done; and if a page 
 of his Milton were to be read according to 
 the invariable rules of English pronunciation, 
 the ear would be frequently outraged with 
 barbarous sounds, occasioned by the erroneous 
 shortening of the penultimate vowel, or the 
 equally erroneous hardening of the penulti- 
 mate consonant, when it happened to be 
 c, or g. In the following lines for instance 
 
 " If thou beest he: butO! how fallen! how chang'd 
 From him, who in the happy realms of light, 
 Cloth'd with transcendent brightness, didst outshine, &:c." 
 
 the g in " chang'd " is hard as in clang or 
 rang, and the o in cloth'd is short as in clot 
 or plot. In these lines however the Editor 
 has deviated from his usual practice by leav- 
 ing the e of the inflexion in " beest" and 
 " fallen," in the latter of which words it hap- 
 pens to be of very immaterial consequence. 
 It is strange that a principle of poetic ortho- 
 graphy which is so obvious, and has more 
 than once been publicly explained, should 
 yet not be followed : but if the editors of our 
 poets are inflexibly bent on retaining their 
 
APPENDIX. 643 
 
 tnumpsimus, the evil is irremediable, and their 
 perverse fancies must be indulged at the ex- 
 pence of principle and consistency. Mr. 
 Todd in this instance is not more blameable 
 than the multitude of his brother-editors; and 
 I only lament that he should be involved in 
 their common error. As an editor of our 
 great poet, he is certainly entitled to praise 
 from the public; and he seems also to be a 
 most estimable, candid and amiable man. 
 He is indeed, if such a thing can be, too 
 good-natured and benevolent; and his eulogy 
 is lavished with so indiscriminate a hand as 
 to be depreciated considerably in its currency* 
 By his sentence, almost every writer on his 
 subject is excellent and admirable: in his pages 
 
 Hayley is animated and interesting and 
 
 acute. My share of attention from him, though 
 not of a size to oppress me with obligation, is 
 sufficiently ample; and fully adequate to my 
 claims. On some occasions, the Editor and 
 I do not seem to understand each other. 
 With the opportunity of correcting my error 
 if he had made me sensible of it, I have suf- 
 fered the note, (p. 372,) on the Bishop 1 of 
 LandafFs crimination of Milton, to remain, 
 in all its words, syllables, and letters, as it 
 
 1 See Todd's Life of Milton, 2d ed. p. 78, 7g, SO. 
 
644 APPENDIX. 
 
 was; and if it should not refute the worthy 
 Prelate's 30th of January charge against my 
 author, it will stand as the record of my own 
 confused apprehension. 
 
 With respect to Mr. Warton's insufficiency 
 as a critic, my opinion is formed on too large 
 an acquaintance with that gentleman's pro- 
 ductions ever to be retracted. When m I cen- 
 sure him for his attack upon Pope, it is not the 
 substance but the manner of the annotator's 
 remark which excites my reprehension. I 
 require not to be told that Pope gleaned 
 poetic expression from every page in which 
 it was to be found: but I may be allowed to 
 resent a charge brought against the great bard 
 of Twickenham for pilfering from an old poet^ 
 because he thought he could pilfer without being 
 exposed to detection. Pope borrowed poetic 
 phraseology from many of our old poets: but 
 he borrowed it from Dryden, who was m 
 every person's hand, more largely than from 
 all our old poets together. He was too af- 
 fluent and powerful to pilfer or to be in dread 
 of detection: but, like his master, Dryden, 
 before him, he took by the right of genius 
 whatever he could appropriate to his own 
 purposes; and the seizure was made under 
 the full eye of the sun. If, during the life- 
 
 m Id. p. 163. 
 
APPENDIX. 645 
 
 time of the dreaded satirist Mr. Warton had 
 expressed himself in the language which I 
 have reprehended, it is probable that he 
 would have obtained a place among the divers 
 in Fleet-ditch; and instead of the muse, in 
 whose arms his admirers now fancy that he 
 reposes, would have been a successful rival 
 of Smedley's, and strained to the oozy bosom 
 of a mud-nymph. Mr. Walton's treatment 
 of others is unquestionably not such as to 
 make him the subject of any peculiar lenity. 
 Tickell and Elijah Fenton, each of them in 
 talents and general respectability of character 
 at least his equal, experience his severity on 
 innumerable occasions, and are always cer- 
 tain, whenever they occur to him, of being 
 felled by his unmerciful buffets. He fre- 
 quently supplies, as I have acknowledged, 
 very useful information: but in criticism he 
 is uniformly unfortunate; and if every note 
 of his, in which opinion and critical remark 
 are hazarded, were to be erased from this va- 
 riorum edition of Milton's poetry, the work 
 would be improved by the circumstance. But 
 with Mr. Todd and his literary community, 
 the late Laureat is one of Apollo's assessors on 
 the forked hill: and there let him remain for 
 me, and be the oracle of those who may chuso 
 
646 APPENDIX. 
 
 to resort to him for inspiration, and gratefully 
 to fumigate him with incense. 
 
 Of Mr. Tcdd, let me repeat that my opi- 
 nion is highly favourable. His notes are 
 commonly distinguished by their good sense; 
 and his adduction of similar passages and 
 expressions, though not always important, is 
 generally successful and brought from rather 
 an extensive circle of reading. As a com- 
 mentator on Milton he occupies, after Patrick 
 Hume, Pearce, and Newton, the very first 
 place : and I wish that he had been satisfied with 
 these three learned and ingenious men as his 
 associates, and had rejected the trash which 
 has been imposed on his facility by the gen- 
 tlemen who write with ease, to mitigate the 
 pains and penalties of idleness, or to indulge, 
 in the only way open to them, the vanity of 
 authorship. 
 
 THE END. 
 
 
INDEX 
 
 TO THE 
 
 LIFE OF MILTON, 
 
 A. 
 
 Abbot, abp. 220 
 
 Addison, 521, 530, 531, 594 
 
 -(Elian, 203 
 
 jEschylus, 86, 100, 559 
 
 Alexander VI, pope, 260 note 
 
 Alphry, Mr. 207 
 
 America, the preserver of the fame 
 of the British classics, 122 
 
 a proof, that neither 
 
 tithes nor establishments are ne- 
 cessary to Christianity, 475 
 
 American epitaph on Bradshaw, 
 316 note 
 
 Andreini, 525 
 
 Anglesey, earl of, 337 
 
 Apollonius, 253 
 
 Ariosto, 193 note, 532 note 
 
 Aristotle, 332 note, 561 
 
 Army, under Charles I, refuses to 
 fight the Scots, 169 note 
 
 its agitation after the death 
 
 of Charles, 434 
 
 conduct on the death of 
 
 Cromwell, 470 
 
 Arthur, king, 182, note, 195 
 
 Ascham, 524 note 
 
 Assembly of divines, 461 
 
 Atterbury, bish. 568 note 
 
 Aubrey, 45 note, 71, 200, 205, 
 547 note, 549, 573 note 
 
 Auger, 329 
 
 Aylmer, Brabazon, 552 
 
 B. 
 
 Bacon, the sculptor, 568 
 Barberini, cardinal, 136, 139 
 Barebones' Parliament, 438 
 
 Barebones' Parliament, resigns,439 
 
 Bargrave, Dr. 136 note 
 
 Barkstead, Mr. 495 note 
 
 Barnes, Joshua, 572 
 
 Baron i, Leonora, 140, 573 note 
 
 Barrow, Dr. 548 
 
 Bayle, 365, 388, 392 
 
 Beaux of the puritan age, 207 
 
 Bedell, bish. i 28 note 
 
 Bembo, 193 note 
 
 Bendy she, Henry, 506 note 
 
 Benson, Mr. 568, 633 note 
 
 Bentley, Dr. 536 ib. note 
 
 Betterton, 490 
 
 Bindley, Mr. 8, 247 note 
 
 Birch, Dr. 41, 87, 330 note, 354 
 note, 392, 431 note, 455, 595 
 
 Blackburn, archdeacon, 39 note 
 
 Blake, admiral, 457, 498 
 
 Bonmatthei, 133, 134 
 
 Bontia, see Pontia 
 
 Borlase, rev. George, 55 note 
 
 Bouquet, Mr. 625 
 
 Bourdeaux, the French ambas- 
 sador, 414 
 
 Boyle, Robert, 502 
 
 Bradshaw, 290, 308, 309 note, 328 
 
 his character, 309, 311, 
 
 3*3 
 epitaph on him, 3 1 6 
 
 note 
 Bramhall, abp. 205 note/393, 395 
 
 note 
 
 Brand, Mr. 597 
 British Critic, 614 note 
 Brutus, grandson of ^Eneas, fabu 
 
 lous conqueror of Britain, 182 
 
 note 
 
INDEX. 
 
 Bucer, Martin, 247, 298 note 
 Buckhurst, lord, see Dorset, earl of 
 Bucolic verse, structure of, 1 74 
 Burke, Edmund, 357, 360 note, 
 
 486 note 
 
 Burner., bish. 345 note 
 Burney, Rev. Dr. C. 62 note 
 Butson, bish. 638 
 
 C. 
 
 Caesar, Julius, 22, 435 
 
 Calamy, Edmund, 237 
 
 Calvin, 298 note 
 
 Cambridge Latin Dictionary, 464 
 
 Caroline, queen, 594 
 
 Cave, 17, 620 
 
 Celsus, 203 
 
 Chappell, Wm. reputed author of 
 the Whole Duty of Man, 55 
 
 harlemont, earl of, 572 
 
 Charles I, violence of his conduct, 
 216, 217 note 
 
 popish intrigues conduced 
 
 to his misfortunes, 232 note 
 
 civil war in his time 
 
 eminent for benignity and mo- 
 deration, 286 
 
 his conduct after his last 
 
 defeat, ib. 
 
 ........ his character, 323 
 
 . his corpse said to have 
 
 been hung at Tyburn, 495 note 
 
 Charles II, 472, 487, ib. note, 488 
 497 note, 508 note 
 
 his conduct op his res- 
 toration, 493 
 
 the press shackled by 
 
 him 521 note 
 
 Chaucer, 150 note 
 
 Chorus of the Greek drama, 559 
 
 Christina, queen of Sweden, 389 
 
 39 6 > 4^7 
 
 praised by all the grea 
 
 scholars of Europe, 428 note 
 
 beloved by her people, 
 
 and her abdication opposed by 
 the remonstrances of the senate, 
 fa 
 
 verses under Crom- 
 well's portrait sent to her, by 
 Milton, 430 
 
 Church of England, 222, 227,475 
 
 larendon, lord, 224, 341, 344 
 note, 496 note 
 Uarges, Sir Thomas, 489 
 llarke, Mrs. (Milton's daughter) 
 578 note, 582, 583, 594, 597 
 note 
 
 'larke, Mr. 526 note 
 Clay pole, Mrs. 498 
 "lement, 391, note 
 >lementillo, 133 
 Climate, without influence on the 
 
 human intellect, 159 note 
 >)ltellino, 133 
 
 Common wealth and monarchy con- 
 trasted, 481 
 more humane than 
 
 the monarchy, 491 note 
 Comnenus, Andronicus, 332 note 
 Composition, 10 
 Conde, pretended agent of the 
 
 prince of, 319 
 Controversy, 241 
 Coronation oath, 348 note 
 Council of state, 306, 307 
 Cowley, 84 
 Cowper, Wm. TO note, 19, 22, 
 
 185 note, 214 note, 606 
 Translations by 
 
 him, 607, 608 note 
 Cradock, Mr. 572 
 Criticism cannot render dull poetry 
 
 pleasing, 555 
 Critics, public, 1 2 
 Cromwell, 286, 288, 289, 290, 
 
 310 note, 430, 521 note, 565, 
 
 588 
 Ins character, 435, 446, 
 
 473 
 
 the protestants of Pied- 
 mont saved by his interposition, 
 318 note 
 
 foments the agitation 
 
 of the army, 435 
 
 made protector by it, 
 
 439 
 Milton's panegyric of 
 
 him, 441 
 
 his death, 469 
 
 reputed clisinter- 
 
 ment, 494 note 
 
 Richard, 470 
 
 Henry, 470 note 
 
 Cunningham, 487 note 
 
INDEX. 
 
 D. 
 
 Dante, 270, 532 note 
 
 Dati, Carlo, 132 
 
 Davenant, bish, 218 
 
 D'Avenant, sir W. his life saved 
 
 by Milton, 489 
 Davis, Miss, 251 
 Dawes, 62 note 
 
 Defence of the People of England, 
 five editions of it published in the 
 coarse of a few months, 388 note 
 Delilie, abbe, 551 note 
 Denham, sir John, 550 note 
 Deodati, Charles, ist elegy to, 62 
 note, 65 note 
 
 letter to, 1 13 note, 
 
 115 note 
 
 account of him, 
 
 169, 184 note 
 
 poem on his 
 
 death, 170, 1^5 
 
 second elegy to, 
 
 208, 212 note 
 
 Giovanni, 168 
 
 Theodore, 1 70 
 
 Desborough, 470, il. note 
 Diodorus, 641 
 
 Disney, rev. Dr. 24, 597, 598 
 Divines, assembly of, 461 
 Divorce, on the causes of, 248 
 Dobson, capt. 245 
 Doryslaus, 524 note 
 Dorset, earl of, 549, 550 note 
 Douglas, bish, 62,4 and note 
 Douce, Mr. 614 note 
 Drama, Grecian, 558 
 Drummond, 271,1^. note 
 his sonnet to the night- 
 ingale, 271 note 
 Dryden, 79, 529, 548, 549, 644 
 Du Moulin, Dr. Lewis, 224 note 
 
 Peter, scurrilous 
 
 and profane, 409 note 
 
 cowardly 
 
 and base, 420 note 
 
 see Moulin , du 
 
 Dunster, Mr. 431 note, 554 
 Dnppa, bish. 338 
 Dutch, embassy from the, 320 
 Dutton, Mr. 466 
 
 E. 
 
 Ecclesiastical establishments not 
 essentially necessary, 475 
 
 Education, Milton's plan of, 200^ 
 
 255 , 
 EoccoV dXrftivr^ 335 
 
 y if ley, 336 note 
 
 Elections, Milton's scheme for, 477 
 Elliot, sir John, 217 note 
 Ellwood the quaker, 509 
 Engagement, substituted for the 
 solemn league and covenant, 43 2 
 England, antiquity of its freedom, 
 
 3 6 4 
 
 its constitution, 585 
 
 Episcopacy attacked by Milton, 227 
 defended by bish. Hall, 
 
 232, 237 
 view of the question, 
 
 234 
 Este, Leonora of, 140 note 
 
 F. 
 
 Fairfax, 437, 565 
 
 Faithorne, 597 
 
 Fannius, 488 note 
 
 Females, punishment of burning, 
 
 abolished by act of parliament, 
 
 491 note 
 
 Fenton, Elijah, 80, 552, 645 
 Fleetwood, 470, il. note 
 Foster, Mrs. 547 note, 582, 595 
 Fox, Mr. C. J. 23 
 Francini, Antonio, 132, 137 
 French language, 551 note 
 Frescobaldi, 133 
 Frontinus, 203 
 Fuller, 330 note 
 Fuseli, 144 
 
 G. 
 
 Gaddi, 133 
 
 Galileo, 134, 168 note 
 
 Gard, du, 328, 329 
 
 Garden houses, 206 note 
 
 Gauden, Dr. the author of Icon 
 
 Basihke, 337 note, 338, 345 
 
 note 
 
 Geminus, 203 
 
 Geotfrey of Monmouth, 305 
 George, Dr. 569 
 Gesner, 172 
 Gifford, Wm. 23, 31, 156 note, 
 
 187 note 
 
INDEX. 
 
 Gilby, 298 note 
 Gill, Alexander, 5 2 
 
 jun. ib. and note 
 
 Goodman, Christopher, 298 note 
 Goodwin, John, 490 note 
 Gray, 71 
 
 false quantity of his, 60 note 
 
 Grecian drama, 558 
 Griffith, Dr. Matthew, 486 
 Gronovius, J. F. 397 note k 
 Grotius, 130 
 
 H. 
 
 Hale, sir Matthew, 457 
 Hall, bish. 218, 233, 240 
 .... answers Milton on episco- 
 pacy, 232 
 
 .... defends his answer, 237 
 . . .-, defended by his son, 238 
 Hammond, colonel, 289 note 
 
 sir Peter, 217 note 
 
 Happiness, what essential to, 589 
 Harpe, la, 535 note 
 Harrison, 309 note 
 Hartlib, Samuel, 255 
 Hawkins, sir John, 632 note 
 Hayley, Mr. 10, 19, 39, 41, 156 
 note, 185 note, 525, 527, 551 
 note, 606, 643 
 Heimbach, Peter, his address to 
 
 Cromwell, 514 note 
 letter to him, 
 
 Si5 
 Heinsius, Nicholas, 59 note, 388 
 
 note, 391 note, 392 note, 396 
 
 note, 397, 412 note, 417 note, 
 
 428 note, 579 note 
 Henderson, 346 note 
 letter of Charles J to, 
 
 347 note 
 
 Henrietta, queen of Charles I, sanc- 
 tioned the Irish rebellion, 301 
 
 Hertford, Marquis of, 338 
 
 Hesiod, 203 
 
 Hewett, Dr. 498 note 
 
 Hills, 328, 331 note 
 
 Hoc, short in some of the comic 
 poets, 58 note 
 
 Hogg, his relation of Mr, King's 
 shipwreck, 108 note 
 
 translation of Paradise 
 
 Lost into Latin, 624 
 
 Hollis, Mr. Thomas, 597, 598 
 Hoistenius, 136 
 Homer, 531, 532,538 
 Horace, 3 1 o note 
 Horsiey, bish. 438 note 
 Howard, Henry, 270 note 
 Hume, 646 
 
 instance of his disinge- 
 
 nuousness, 343 
 
 Patrick, 64(5 
 
 Hungerford, sir George, 550 note 
 
 Hurd, bish. 273, 608 
 
 Hyde, sir Edward, see Clarendon 
 
 I. 
 
 Icon Alethine, 335 
 Icon Basilike, 321 
 
 answered, 322 
 
 suspected by MiltoR 
 
 not to be written by king Charles, 
 
 334 
 written by Dr. Gau- 
 
 den, 337 note, 338, 345 note e, 
 
 ib. note f 
 its great sale, 344 
 
 note 
 
 Icon episte, 336 note 
 Iconoclastes, 322 
 Imitation, in poetry, 608 
 Ireland, rebellion of the catholics, 
 
 in, 300 
 
 : . . . massacre in, ib. 
 Ireton, 288, 289, 290, 291, 495 
 
 .... his death, 437, ib. note 
 
 
 J. 
 
 James II, his risit to Milton, 508 
 note 
 
 Janssen, Cornelius, 45 
 
 Jenkins, sir Leoline, 570 
 
 Jodrell, Mr. 572 
 
 Johnson, Dr. 14 
 
 strictures on his life 
 
 of and criticisms on Milton, 39, 
 72, 171, 204 note, 330 note, 
 506 note, 507 note, 540 note, 
 547 note, 550 note, 568 note, 
 631 
 
 his connexion with 
 
 Lauder's affair, 620 
 
 letter for Lander, 
 
 626 
 
INDEX. 
 
 Johnston, Dr. Arthur, his Latin 
 version of the Psalms, 627 
 
 Jones, sir Wm. 62 note, 118 note, 
 576 note, 589, 616, 618 
 
 Jonson, Ben. 52 note 
 
 Jortin, Dr. 553 
 
 Junius, Francis, 396 and note, 579 
 note 
 
 Juxon, bish. 330 note 
 
 K. 
 
 Killegrew, Mrs. Ann, 79 
 King, Edward, 108 and note 
 Kings, tenure of, 293, 298, 299 
 
 L. 
 
 Laing, 230 note, 345 note 
 Lambert, major general, 309 note, 
 
 494 
 
 Langhorne, Dr. 157 note, 185 note 
 Lansdown, marquis of, 123 note 
 Latin, Milton would have it pro- 
 nounced in the foreign mode, 
 
 
 Laud, abp. 219 
 
 Lauder, 329, 633 note 
 
 his attempt to defame Mil- 
 ton, 618 
 
 Lawes, Henry, 106 
 
 Leighton, Dr. 220 note 
 
 L' Estrange, sir Roger, his answer 
 to Milton, 487 
 
 Leven, earl of, 286 
 
 Ley, lady Margaret, 245 
 
 .... James, earl of Madborough, 
 
 245 
 Liberty, essential to the perfection 
 
 of man, 587 
 Liberty of conscience, 230 ib. note 
 
 474 
 a republic 
 
 most favourable to, 481 
 Licenser of the press, revived b) 
 
 Charles the second, 521 
 
 see Press 
 
 Lindsey, earl of, 496 note 
 Literary Journal, 106 note 
 Long parliament, 215, 224, 458 
 dissolved by Crom 
 
 well, 438 
 
 revived, 470 
 
 Love, Mr. his execution, 433 
 
 Lucretius, 202, 203, 405 note 
 ,udlow, 291, 310 note, 524 note 
 ^uther, 298 note 
 
 M. 
 
 Vlabbot, Gilbert, resigns the office 
 of licenser of the press, 266 and 
 note 
 
 Vlagistrates, tenure of, 294 
 
 Vlalatesti, 133 and note 
 
 Ylalone, Mr. E. 549 note 
 
 Vtan, liberty essential to the per- 
 fection of, 587 
 
 VTanilius, 202 
 
 Manso, Giovanni Battista, marquis 
 of Villa, 144, 148 note, 168 note, 
 465, 528 note 
 poem to, 148., 153 
 
 Vlarino, 148 note 
 
 Vlarlborough, earl of, 245 
 
 Marshall, Stephen, 237 
 
 Marvell, Andrew, 430 note, 466, 
 489, 548 
 
 his letter to Mil- 
 ton on having presented his 2d 
 Defence to Cromwell, 455 note 
 
 account of him, 
 
 466 note 
 
 of the 
 
 death of his father, 467 note 
 
 Mask, a dramatic piece, what, 104 
 
 Mason, 560 
 
 Matthews, rev. Mr. 24 
 
 May, 84, 498 note 
 
 Millar, Mr. 207 
 
 Millington, the auctioneer, 337 
 note, 501 
 
 Milton, family of 41 
 
 his grandfather, 42 
 
 accountof his father, 42, 43 
 
 his brother Christopher, 43 
 
 sister Ann, 43, 44 
 
 birth, 45 
 
 portrait of him, 45, 597 
 
 his education, 46 
 
 entered at Christ's college^ 
 
 Cambridge, 54 
 
 slander respecting his con- 
 duct and treatment at the uni- 
 versity, 4, 56 note, 57 
 charged with false quan- 
 tity, 58 note, 175 note 
 an early poet, 77 
 
IND 
 
 Milton, his progress in poetry, 77 
 
 poem on the death o 
 
 an infant, 78 
 ode on the morning o: 
 
 Christ's nativity, 80 
 
 Latin poems, 83 
 
 letter from him to a 
 
 friend in defence of his studies 
 
 87 
 
 , . . . . leaves the university, 91 ,92 
 .... his Arcades, 97, 98 
 
 Comus, 97, 99 
 
 Lycidas, 97, 108 
 
 1' Allegro, 97, 117 
 
 il Penseroso, 97, 117 
 
 compared with Shak- 
 
 speare, 101 
 published with diffi- 
 dence, in 
 his letter to Deodati, 113, 
 
 ii 
 
 ..... death of his mother, 125 
 
 ..... letter to him from sir H. 
 
 Wotton, 126 
 
 ..... travels to Paris, 130 
 
 ..... proceeds to Italy, 131 
 
 ..... stops at Florence, il. 
 
 .... applauses he received there, 
 
 132, 133 
 ..... his skill in the Italian lan- 
 
 guage, 133, 134 
 ..... visits Rome, 131; 
 ..... panegyrics on him there, 
 
 137 
 ..... his scazons OH Salsilli's 
 
 illness, 138, 139 
 ....... epigram to Leonora 
 
 singing, 140 
 ....... Italian sonnet to her, 
 
 142 
 
 ..... goes to Naples, 144 
 ..... his poem to Manso, 148, 
 
 proects an epic poem, 155, 
 158, 159, 195,465 
 
 prevented from visiting Si- 
 cily and Greece by the troubles 
 in England, 163 
 
 revisits Rome, 164 
 
 Florence, il. 
 goes to Venice, 165 
 Geneva, ib, 
 
 EX. 
 
 Milton, did not take a superficial 
 
 view of Italy, 167 
 
 returns to England, 168 
 
 . . . v . . his poem to the memory 
 
 of his friend Deodati, 170 
 reasons why he wrote in 
 
 English, 192 note 
 engages in controversy, 
 
 195, 196, 215 
 educates his two nephews, 
 
 and some others, 198 
 hence called a schoolmas- 
 ter, 199 
 his conduct in this respect 
 
 examined, il. 
 plan of instruction, 200, 
 
 2OJ, 202 
 
 removes from St. Bride's 
 
 to Aldersgate street, 206 
 
 abstemious, 207 
 
 his second elegy to Deo- 
 dati, 208, 212 note 
 
 two books of Reforma- 
 tion touching Church-govern- 
 ment in England, 227 
 answers to Hall's De- 
 fence of Episcopacy, 233 
 
 Animadversions on the 
 
 Remonstrant's Defence, 237 
 
 Apology for Smectym- 
 
 nuus, 239 
 
 marries, 243 
 
 his wife leaves him, 244, 
 
 245 
 
 receives more pupils, 244 
 
 his father comes to reside 
 
 with him, 244 
 
 dies, 245 
 
 Doctrine and Discipline 
 
 of Divorce, 247 
 Judgment of Martin 
 
 Bucer concerning Divorce, il. 
 
 Tetrachordon, il. 
 
 Colasterion, ib 
 
 summoned before the house 
 
 of Lords, 248 
 pays his addresses to Miss 
 
 Davis, 251 
 
 reconciled to his wife, 252 
 
 his Treatise on Education, 
 
 255 
 
 Areopagitica, on the li 
 
 berty of the press, 258 
 
INDEX. 
 
 
 Milton, an edition of his poems 
 published, 268 
 
 remarks on his sonnets, 
 
 271 
 
 criticism on his ode to his 
 
 poems sent to the Bodleian li- 
 brary, 281 note r 
 
 his eldest daughter born, 
 
 283, 284 
 
 the Powells leave his house, 
 
 285 
 
 birth of his second daugh- 
 ter, ib. 
 
 removes to High Holborn, 
 
 it. 
 
 appointed Latin secretary 
 
 to the council of state, 286, 308 
 
 his office nearly equivalent 
 
 to that of the modern secretary 
 of state for the foreign depart- 
 ment, 319, 396 note h 
 
 his Tenure of Kings and 
 
 Magistrates, 293 
 
 Observations on the 
 
 Peace with the Irish, 300 
 
 History of England, 
 
 347457. 55 2 
 ...... his Iconoclastes, 321,322 
 
 vindicated against the 
 
 charge of forgery, 329 
 answers to his Iconoclastes, 
 
 333 
 removes to Charing Cross, 
 
 and thence to Scotland yard, 
 
 349 
 birth of his son, ib. 
 
 removes to Petty France, 
 
 ft 
 
 answers Salmasius, 350, 
 
 362 
 
 his Defence of the People 
 
 of England, 363, 364, 365, &c. 
 
 defended from a charge of 
 
 falsehood, '3 7 2 note 
 
 his account of his loss of 
 
 sight, 378, 384 
 
 answers to Milton's De- 
 fence, 391, 393, 406 
 
 birth of his third daugh- 
 ter, 398 
 
 date of his blindness, 399 
 
 his sonnet to Cyriac Skin- 
 ner on his loss of sight, 400 
 
 Vlilton, marriage and death of his 
 
 second wife, 405 
 
 .... sonnet on the death of his 
 
 wife, 406 
 
 .... his second Defence, 408, 
 
 420 
 
 .... answer to this, 415 
 
 .... his Defence of himself in 
 
 reply, ib. 
 
 .... account of himself, 421 
 
 .... his panegyric of Cromwell, 
 
 441 
 
 .... engaged in three great 
 
 works, 457 
 
 . . . . his Latin Thesaurus, 457, 
 
 464 
 
 , ...... Paradise Lost, 464, 5 1 8, 
 
 528 
 
 ..... Marvell made joint secre- 
 
 tary with him, 466 
 
 ..... publishes sir Walter Ra- 
 
 legh's Cabinet Council, 469 
 
 ..... his Treatise of Civil Power 
 
 in Ecclesiastical Causes, 474 
 
 ....... Likeliest means to re- 
 
 move Hirelings out of the 
 
 Church, ib. 
 
 ....... Present Means and Brief 
 
 Delineation of a free Common- 
 
 wealth, 477 
 
 . . ..... Ready and Easy Way 
 
 to establish a free Common- 
 
 wealth, ib. 
 
 ..... answers to his Tracts en a 
 Commonwealth, 4815 
 
 ..... his Notes on Dr. Griffith's 
 Sermon, 486 
 
 ..... answered by Lestrange, 487 
 
 ..... at the Restoration secreted 
 in Bartholomew Close, 487 
 
 ..... r,aid to have had a mock 
 
 funeral, ib. note 
 
 .... his life saved chiefly by 
 . D'Avenant, 489 
 taken into custody, 500 
 rents a house in Holborn, 
 
 sr 
 
 removes to Jew in street, 
 Artillery Walk, 
 
 Bunhill Fields, ib. 
 
 lodges with Millington the 
 
 auctioneer, il>. 
 
INDEX. 
 
 
 Milton, marries his third wife, 502 
 his nuncupative will, 503, 
 
 57 
 
 ill behaviour of his daugh- 
 ters, 503 
 
 his Accidence commenced 
 
 Grammar, 506 
 
 edition of Ralegh's A- 
 
 phorisms of State, 507 
 
 visited by James duke of 
 
 York, 508 note 
 
 retires to Chalfont on ac- 
 count of the plague, 5 1 2 
 
 Paradise Regained suggest- 
 ed to him, 513 
 
 returns to London, ib. 
 
 his Paradise Lost, 518, 5 28 
 
 apprehensive of assassina- 
 tion, 524 
 
 his genius most vigorous in 
 
 winter, 539 
 
 manner of composing, 
 
 547 
 two French translations of 
 
 his Paradise lost, 551 note 
 
 his Paradise regained, 552 
 
 Samson Agonistes, 557 
 
 Art of Logic, 560 
 
 True Religion, Heresy, 
 
 Schism, Toleration, &c. 562 
 second edition of his Poems 
 
 and Tracts on Education, 565 
 
 his familiar Letters, ib. 
 
 University Exercises, ib. 
 
 Brief History of Mus- 
 covy, 566 
 
 works of his lot, 566 note 
 
 his death, 567 
 
 his Epitaph, 569 note 
 
 report of his grave having 
 
 been opened, 569 note 
 
 his person, 573 
 
 habits, 574 
 
 character, $78,593 
 
 erudition, 582 
 
 politics, 584 
 
 religion, 589 
 
 children, 594 
 
 . . ... portraits of him, 45, 597 
 
 his verses to his father, 599 
 
 Lauder's attempt to defame 
 
 him, 619 
 Miltonists, 250 
 
 Mind, not influenced by climate, 
 but by political and moral causes, 
 1 60 note 
 
 Minds of high powers, intent on 
 knowledge, above licentious in- 
 dulgences, 73 
 
 Minshull, Eliz. Milton's third wife, 
 502, 506 note 
 
 Monneron's Translation of Paradise 
 Lost into French, 551 note 
 
 Montesquieu, 160 note 
 
 More, Alexander, 407, 409, 416 
 note, 418 note, 429 note, 441 
 note 
 
 replies to Mil- 
 ton, 415,416 
 
 objects to Mil- 
 ton the assumption and arro- 
 gance of his address to Crom- 
 well, 441 note 
 
 Morgan^ Maurice, 122 note 
 
 characterof, 1 23 
 
 note 
 
 Morhoff, 566 
 
 Morrice, secretary, 489 
 
 Morus, Alexander, see More 
 
 Mosely, Humphry, 268 
 
 Moulin, du, 70 note, 393, 406, 
 409 note, 418 note, 419 note, 
 429 note, 580 
 
 Dr. Lewis, 224 note 
 
 N. 
 
 Namancos, no note 
 
 Naseby, battle of, terminated the 
 
 war with Charles, 286 
 Navigation act, the work of the 
 
 Long Parliament, 432 
 Nedham, 390 note 
 Newcomen, Matthew, 237 
 Newton, bish. 331 note, 431 note, 
 
 557 note, 595, 646 
 Nicetas, 332 note 
 
 O. 
 
 Oldenburgh, Henry, 523 
 
 O'Neale, 302 
 
 Oppian, 203 
 
 Ormond, earl of, his peace with 
 
 the Irish, 300, 303 
 Orpheus, 210 note 
 
INDEX. 
 
 Overton, colonel, 456 
 Owen, Mr. 476 note 
 Oxenbridge, Mr. 455 note 
 
 P. 
 
 Pa get, Dr. 501 
 
 Paine, Thomas, 336 note 
 
 Pakington, Lady, 55 note r 
 
 Palmer, Herbert, 247 note 
 
 Papias, 235 
 
 Papists, their intrigues conducive 
 
 to the ruin of Charles the First, 
 
 232 note 
 not objects of political 
 
 jealousy in the present times, 
 
 562 note 
 Paraeus, 298 note 
 Parr, Dr. Samuel, 23, 58 note, 59 
 
 note, 60 note, 180 note 
 Parliament, Long, 215, 224, 458, 
 
 470 
 
 Rump, 432 
 
 Barebones', 439 
 
 Party, 37 note 
 
 Pastoral poetry, English, remarks 
 
 on, 172 
 
 Payne and Bouquet, 625 
 Pearce, bish. 526 note,, 646 
 People, the source of political 
 
 power, 364 
 
 Peter Martyr, 298 note 
 Peters, Hugh, 494 
 Petrarch, 270 
 Petty, sir Wm. 255 
 
 lord Henry, 1 23 note 
 
 Philaras, Leonard, 374, 375, 381, 
 
 383 
 Philips, Edward, brother in law of 
 
 Milton, 44 
 
 nephew of Mil- 
 ton, 44, 198, 204 note, 205, 274, 
 
 3i9 55> 5 2 3> 5 2 6, 539> 553 
 note, 581 note, 616 
 
 John, 44, 198, 205, 394 
 
 note, 395, 464 
 
 Piedmont, the Protestants of, saved 
 by the interposition of Crom- 
 well, 318 note 
 
 Pierpont, lady Anne, 250 note 
 
 Pliny, 203 
 
 Plutarch, 203 
 
 Poetry compared with painting and 
 sculpture, 143 
 
 observations on, 555 
 
 Pontia, servant of Madame de Sau- 
 maise, 410 
 
 epigram on her, 41 1 
 
 assists her mistress in whip- 
 ping a boy, 412 note 
 
 attacks her lover, Morus, 
 
 417 note 
 
 Pope, 489, 490, 615, 627, 644 
 
 Popery, whether tolerable or no, 
 562 and note 
 
 Powell, Mary, 243, 252, 616 
 
 Powell, Richard, Milton's father in 
 law, 243, 253 note 
 
 Prelacy, see Episcopacy 
 
 Presbyterians, intolerant, 248, 258, 
 259. 265, 304 
 
 followed the steps of 
 
 the episcopalians when in power, 
 259, 265,461,462 
 
 unite with the royal- 
 ists, 471 
 
 Press, liberty of the, defended, 259 
 
 reasonsagainstlicensing, 266 
 
 note 
 
 set free by Cromwell, 521 
 
 note 
 
 shackled by Charles the Se- 
 cond, ib. 
 
 Price, Dr. 486 note 
 
 Ptolemy, 183 note 
 
 Puckering, sir Henry Newton, 5 26 
 note 
 
 Pulpit politics, 486 note 
 
 Punishment of burning for females 
 abolished by act of Parliament, 
 491 note 
 
 Pym, 498 note 
 
 Q. 
 
 Quintus Calaber, 203 
 
 R. 
 
 Ralegh, sir Walter, bis Cabinet 
 Council published by Milton, 469 
 
 his aphorisms 
 
 of state, 507 
 
 Ramus, Peter, 561 
 
INDEX 
 
 Ranelagb, lady, 502 
 
 Religion, on things indifferent in, 
 230 note 
 
 conscience should be per- 
 fectly free in matters of, 474 
 
 neither tithes nor esta- 
 blishments necessary to, 475 
 
 Republic, see Commonwealth 
 
 Reynolds, sir Joshua, 598 
 
 Rich, colonel, 310 note 
 
 Richardson, 199, 489, 501, 505, il. 
 note, 507, 523, 524 note, 539, 
 545, 546, 547 notes f and g, 
 
 549 575 note > 576, 57 8 note 
 
 anecdote related by him 
 
 on the subject of the Paradise 
 Lost authentic, though ques- 
 tioned by Mr. Malone, 549 note 
 
 Robinson, Dr. Tancred, 524 note 
 
 Roos, or Ross, John lord, 250 note 
 
 Rouse, John, 276 
 
 ode to, 277 
 
 translation of, 
 
 by F. Wrangham, 610 
 
 Rowland, rev. John, 393, 394 note 
 
 Royston, R. 329 
 
 Rump parliament, 432 
 
 dissolved by 
 
 Cromwell, 438 
 
 Rushworth, 288 note 
 
 S. 
 
 Salmasius, 59 note, 350, 366, 389, 
 39o> 396 note, 397 note, 410, 
 417, 490 note, 579 note, 580 
 
 his Defensio Regia, 352 
 
 answered 
 
 by Milton, 362 
 
 violent agitation of 
 
 mind on the success of Milton's 
 answer, 391 note 
 
 story of his ghost al- 
 luded to by N. Heinsius, /7. 
 
 Salsilli, 137, 138 
 
 Sarrau, Claude, 352 note, 416 
 
 his inscription un- 
 der a portrait of Salmasius, 354 
 note 
 
 death, il. 
 
 distichs by him on 
 
 a medal of Christina, 428 note 
 ise^ sec Salraasius 
 
 Saumaise, madame de, 390, 410 
 
 jealous of 
 
 Christina, 390 
 
 her charac- 
 ter not immaculate, 41 1 note 
 
 violent tem- 
 per of, 412 note 
 
 Scott, Walter, 333 note 
 
 Scriboniusj Salmasius so called, 397 
 note, 579 note 
 
 Scudamore, lord, 130, 131 
 
 Selden, 435 
 
 Selvaggi, 137, 138 
 
 Seward, miss, 275 note 
 
 Shakspeare, 271, 332 note 
 
 imitation of, by Mil- 
 ton, 98 
 
 compared with Mil- 
 ton, 10 1 
 
 . . . . permanence of his fame, 
 
 122 note 
 
 Sidney, sir Philip, 271, 327 
 
 Simmons, Samuel, purchases Para- 
 dise Lost, 518, 5 19 note, 552 
 
 Sixtus the Fourth, 260 note 
 
 Skinner, Cyriac, 400, 456 note, 
 
 5 6 5> 5 6 7 note 
 Smcctymnuus, origin of this title, 
 
 237 
 
 Apology for, 239 
 
 Smedley, 645 
 
 Smith, Charlotte, 275 note 
 
 Solomon's Song, 172 
 
 Somers, 521 
 
 Sonnet, origin and structure of the, 
 
 269 
 remarks on the, 270, 275 
 
 note 
 
 Southampton, earl of, 496 note 
 Spanheim, Frederic, 168 
 Spencer, countess dowager, 616 
 Spenser, 271 
 Spirit, not totally divested of body, 
 
 except in the Deity, 529 
 Sprat, bish. 568 note 
 Spurstow, William, 237 
 Stanhope, Mr. Charles, 597 
 Sterling, rev. Joseph, 156 note 
 Stockdale, Percival, 185 note 
 Strode, Mr. 217 note 
 Surrey, earl of, 370 and note, 528 
 
 note 
 
INDEX. 
 
 Switzerland, 165 note 
 Symmonds, 340 and note 
 Symmons, Caroline, 275 note 
 
 sonnet 07,276 
 
 note 
 
 Charles, jun. transla- 
 tion by him, 540 note, 542 note 
 
 T. 
 
 Tasso, 140 note, 528,^. note, 532 
 
 note 
 
 Teignmouth, lord, 616 
 Terentianus Maurus, 58 note, 174 
 
 note 
 
 Theocritus, 172, 174 note 
 Thevenot, Dr. 375, 384 
 Thurloe, 399, 414 note, 506 note 
 Tickell, 80, 645 
 Tithes, not necessary to the support 
 
 of religion, 474, 475 
 Todd, Mr. 93 note, 136 note, 156 
 
 note, 330 note, 372 note, 395 
 
 note, 399, 552 note, 557 note, 
 
 567 note, 640, 646 
 remarks on his edition of 
 
 Milton's poetical works, 640 
 Toland, 41 note, 329, 345, 387, 
 
 388, 477, 539> 540, 5^7, 59, 
 
 591 note 
 
 Tomkyns, Thomas, 521 
 Tonson, Jacob, 552 
 Tovell, Mr. 55 note 
 Tovey, Mr. 55 note 
 Trissino, 527 
 
 Trumbull, sir William, 571 note 
 Tyers, 487 note 
 Tyrants accountable to the people, 
 
 293 
 
 U. 
 
 Usher, abp. 218, 233, 235, 240, 
 
 241 
 Uther Pendragon, 182 note 
 
 V. 
 
 Vane, sir Henry, jun. 308, 310 
 
 note, 494 
 sonnet to, 
 
 3*' 5 6 5 
 Venice, fate of, 165 note 
 
 Virgil, 210 note, 532 
 
 accused of a false quantity, 
 
 58 note 
 
 his bucolics, 174 note 
 
 Vitruvius, 202 
 
 Voltaire, 525 
 
 Vorstius, 350 note, 389 note 
 
 Vossius, Isaac, 58 note, 388 note, 
 392, 396, ib. notes g and h, 417 
 note, 428 note 
 
 opinion of, on the 
 
 burning of the Defence of the 
 People of England by the parlia- 
 ments of Paris, 490 note 
 
 W. 
 
 Waldenses, 318 note 
 
 Waldron, Mr. 333 note 
 
 Walker, Dr. 338 
 
 Mr. J. C. 396 note, 637 
 
 Wall, Mr. of Causham, 476 
 
 Warburton, bish. 553 
 
 Ward, Dr. 583 
 
 Ware, Mr. 375 note 
 
 Warton, Mr. 72, 73 note, 85, 98 
 note u and x, 108 note, 121 note, 
 149 note, 157 note, 171 note, 
 280, 281 and note, 331 note, 
 414 note, 415, 429 note, 430 
 note, 487 note, 503, 598, 613, 
 614 note, 615, 644 
 
 Dr. 615 
 
 Watson, bish. 372 note, 643 
 
 Whitbread, Mr. 568 note 
 
 Whitelocke, 217 note, 435, 446 
 note 
 
 Whole Duty of Man, author of, il. 
 note r 
 
 Williams, abp. 218, 220, 221 note, 
 240 note 
 
 Wood, 71, 390 note, 489, 566 
 note 
 
 Woodcock, Catharine, Milton's se- 
 cond wife, 405 
 
 Wotton, sir H., his letter to Milton 
 going abroad, 1 26 
 
 Wrangham, Francis, 30, 208, 277, 
 609 
 
 his translation 
 
 of Milton's ode to Rouse, 610 
 
 Wright, Dr. 578 noto 
 
 2 U ' 
 
 
INDEX. 
 
 X. 
 
 Xenophon, 203 
 
 Y. 
 Young, Patrick, 638 
 
 Young, rev. Thomas, 49, 50 note, 
 226, 237 
 
 Z. 
 
 Zwinglius, 298 note 
 
 N. B. The references in this volume to Milton's Prose Works are 
 made to the last edition of them, published, in 6 vols 8vo, in 1806. 
 
 T. Bent fey, Prin/fr, 
 Belt Court, iteet Sirem, London. 
 
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